Reviews Rate the game you finished/retired

[Ge0force]

Finished Endless Space 2


I actually finished 5 games for a total of 50 hours. It's a very decent 4X game with lots of different buildings and tech upgrades, and the additions compared to the first game in the series are great. But as a huge fan of Total War Warhammer 2, I really miss playing the battles myself instead of picking a strategy and watch the auto-battle fighting them for me. This makes the game rather repetitive after the first 100 turns. [UWSL]I also find it weird that all factions have the same tech tree, despite the fact that all factions are supposed to play differently. This is the main reason why I didn't bother to buy the DLC. [/UWSL]

[UWSL]Score: 7.5/10[/UWSL]

 

[Ge0force]

Finished Exapunks


Incredible game where you need to solve hacking puzzles by using some kind of limited assembler code. Great puzzles, great presentation and awesome soundtrack. Definitely worth trying!

Score: 8.9/10

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Finished Full Throttle Remastered (Double Fine, 2017)

A wide-screen/HD remaster and console port of the 1995 LucasArts point and click adventure "Full Throttle".

Pro:

• Fans of the original game find the usual high quality level of classic LucasFilm Games / LucasArts adventure remaster here, including the seamless shift between original graphics/sound/music and the remastered version at the push of a button. The game controller control scheme works well most of the time (unfortunately there are a few timed click-me-quick sequences in the game, which are doable but on a controller you really have to know what you are doing, while mouse users have more of a chance of lucking into success) and the addition of a highlight-all-interactable-objects function is very welcome, too.
• The remastered audio in particular is a treat - the original game's sound, music and voice acting performances were severely mangled by the terrible lossy compression LucasArts used to squeeze the game on a single CD-ROM in 1995.

Con:

• There isn't much in this game for people who aren't already fans from way back when, or at least have a thing for biker-gang themed fiction. The story features the most by-the-numbers plot of all the classic Lucasfilm Games / LucasArts adventure games, with bland, stereotypical characters to match, that despite the heroic efforts of the voice acting cast never really come to life.
• For a LucasArts title, the visual art direction is really mediocre. Full Throttle to me will always be "the brown adventure".
• One of the main technical innovations of the original game was using a lot of pre-rendered and animated 3D backgrounds for the driving sequences and cutscenes of the game (previously used in the Star Wars: Rebel Assault games), which didn't feature all that much detail at the time, since the terrible lossy video compression LucasArts used to squeeze the game on a single CD-ROM would have killed it all anyway. Regrettably, the remaster really doesn't add any, but in high resolution this lack just stands out more.
• Tim Schafer tried a lot of new mechanics in this game and most of them turned out to not work great and were never seen again. Besides those, the game also features all the staple point and click anti-features such as pixel hunting, solutions hidden behind repeating choices in a dialog tree an absurd number of times, silly pun or reference-based solutions, and timed sections, something LucasArts stayed well away from in most of their previous games for good reason. Have a guide ready before you start, you won't regret it.

I played this game the first time when it was new and even back then immediately rated it the most missable LucasArts adventure yet - with 25 years of additional hindsight, this remaster confirms the judgement of teenage me. It's also one of the weakest Tim Schafer-directed games to date. The remaster preserves it well for posterity, but doesn't improve it.

2.5/5

 

[FunnyJay]

I remember thinking that Full Throttle also was really short when you compare it to the classic Monkey Island games, or Day of the Tentacle. And mostly just padded by the repeated bike combat sections.

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Finished Genesis Noir (Feral Cat Den / Fellow Traveler, 2021)

An incredibly unique game that wraps most of the current state of the art in cosmology into a hand-animated crime narrative with film noir visuals and a cool jazz musical score. Similarly to Ghost of a Tale, this is the creation of professional animators taking a very ambitious stab at video games, but unlike Ghost of a Tale, the end product is quite happy to be animation first and video game second. The game was partially financed through a successful Kickstarter campaign that raised just under $50.000 during its run.

Pro:

• This game was made by professional artists doing what they do best and it shows in the art direction, which is stellar in quality and extremely unique in character.
• The interactive part of the game features a variety of mini-game mechanics, including classic point and click, simon-says-style repetition of musical sequences, connect-the-dots molecule building, tinkering with virtual scientific apparatus, or simple click-on-anything-that-is-gold, which for the most part hit the sweet spot between giving you something to do and think about for a minute or three without breaking up the flow of the linear visual narrative too much.
• Superb moody cool jazz soundtrack that fits with the noir theme of the visual, but at a decisive moment towards the end of the game breaks style completely and very effectively bursts into euphoric electronica. Has to be heard to be believed.
• You probably cannot get more ambitious with your writing than this game's concept of "Let's wrap the entirety of current cosmology from the creation of the universe until its hypothesized demise into a story where the player character is time itself wrapped in a trench coat and gets involved into a fatal relationship drama between mass and energy" - and it pulls it off successfully.

Con:

• I played this on controller and you can occasionally tell that mouse control clearly was the primary target of the developers - in some scenes, I lost track of the cursor and wished I could just wiggle the mouse to help me find it again quickly. In others, the player is meant to "grab" (e.g. click and hold) part of a scene and then drag to rotate, which is easy to figure out intuitively on a mouse but had me pretty stumped on a controller when I first encountered it until I lucked into moving the left stick in a circle while holding down A.
• Even if you take your time to take it all in, the game won't take you more than 4 hours to complete, and artistic surplus value notwithstanding, the undiscounted retail price is a little steep for that.
• While this game achieves many outstanding things, there is not quite enough game in it to make people who would never touch an "art game" with a ten foot pole suddenly see the light, so if you look at a trailer and have an immediate reaction of "not for me", do trust your instincts.

What a game! This will definitely go into my collection on PC, but not until it's on sale for a significant discount - but once it does, I'll probably get the big bundle with all the making-of and artbook extras, this is one of those games where I just know those will be worthwhile. Right now I'm glad I got to play it on Game Pass, kudos to whoever at Microsoft sealed that deal.

I also recommend checking out the playable teasers at Genesis Noir: Busk 'Til Dusk.

5/5

 

[Ge0force]

Finished Hellpoint


This game is almost literally Dark Souls in Space, because it copies A LOT from the Souls series. Just like many other Souls-like games, HellPoint lacks the incredible level design and enemy variety of From's games, but it still does a lot of things right: first of all, the atmosphere is amazing! The space station has a Dead Space vibe all over it, and the lightning, sounds and music do an excellent job of giving you the creeps. The melee combat is okay as well, and some of the boss fights are very well designed. Exploration is also very rewarding, since there are tons of hidden area's and secrets to discover with great loot.

The game is far from perfect tho: the camera can be extremely frustrating during the boss fights when locked on, you'll be fighting the same enemies over and over again (including re-used bosses from earlier levels), there's A LOT of unnecessary backtracking and several game mechanics are rather poorly explained. Still, Hellpoint is definitely worth playing if you like Souls games, and I hope an improved sequel is on it's way.

Score: 7.1/10

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Finished Donut County (Ben Esposito / Annapurna, 2018)

I started this weird little game immediately after Genesis Noir and that made it even weirder, since in this game, there is also a very important black hole, but one of the ACME cartoon kind. And you control it.

Pro:

• Simple yet clever mechanics: Unlike a real black hole, this one just sits flat on the floor and swallows up stuff - but, quite like its cosmic cousins, grows in size the more it swallows. Sometimes and under certain conditions, things can also escape from this hole and through that, the hole actually gains additional mechanics other than swallowing.
• This may seem quite unbelievable given the mechanics I just described, but the real star of this game is the story. Somehow, Ben Esposito managed to take this, let's be honest, two-day-game-jam level of a concept, and wrote a story, a set of characters and tons of dialog around it that is some of the funniest stuff I have seen in a video game for a long time.
• To top it off, Ben Esposito also has 50% of the music credits and the music is an eclectic mix of delightful little bops.

Con:

• Game time is between one to two hours, and the standard retail price does not reflect that appropriately.

Pick this one up on sale (it happens to be on sale on right now) or play it while it's on game pass (again, it is right now), but definitely do. The game play is a tad too game-jammy for the maximum score (which would put it on equal footing with the similarly compact A Short Hike, which it isn't - quite). Still, a little gem.


4.5/5

Previously reviewed in this thread here and here.

 

[ganmo]

Finished

Visually very pleasing game to play. I like how it started out with that the entire world takes place on a kids playground. And in some parts it made it visually look like it is a miniature world of various tools, toys. However, story wise it is kind of a short game, instead the gameplay time is filled with various puzzles, secrets and collectibles. If you would go for the story only, I think you might finish this game rather fast. Though if you are not used to puzzles intensive games then you might be stuck at some parts in this game for a while.
Not sure if it's because of myself or if it's because of the game camera, but sometime I felt a bit motion sick when I play this game. So be cautious if you are going to play Supraland

Do I recommend it then? Dubious yes.

 

[Wok]

I felt a bit motion sick when I play this game

Same for me.

 

[MomoVideo]

I finished the first playthrough of Nier Automata. It took me about 10 hours. I feel very mixed about the game. I like this style of games, for example, Devil May Cry, Astral Chains, Metal Gear Solid Revengance, but Nier didn't click with me. Firstly, the combat never changes. At the start of the game you have a whole moveset at your disposal, but it is very small. You can't unlock more attacks, but you can swap attacks by changing your weapon but I never felt a need to do that. The world looks interesting but gets boring really fast because the whole game is washed out. The story seemed intriguing with the whole concept of aliens took over the earth so humanity escaped to the moon, but after the first playthrough it did not evolve into anything that would be remotely interesting for me. The music is great tho.

I'm very hesitant about completing more routes, especially because I've read that the second playthrough is nearly identical to the first.
I hate the feeling I got right now about this game, where I bought it and I feel it was a mistake.

 

[Avern]

I finished the first playthrough of Nier Automata. It took me about 10 hours. I feel very mixed about the game. I like this style of games, for example, Devil May Cry, Astral Chains, Metal Gear Solid Revengance, but Nier didn't click with me. Firstly, the combat never changes. At the start of the game you have a whole moveset at your disposal, but it is very small. You can't unlock more attacks, but you can swap attacks by changing your weapon but I never felt a need to do that. The world looks interesting but gets boring really fast because the whole game is washed out. The story seemed intriguing with the whole concept of aliens took over the earth so humanity escaped to the moon, but after the first playthrough it did not evolve into anything that would be remotely interesting for me. The music is great tho.

I'm very hesitant about completing more routes, especially because I've read that the second playthrough is nearly identical to the first.
I hate the feeling I got right now about this game, where I bought it and I feel it was a mistake.

I'd urge you to stick with it. At this point, you've only seen like, 60% of the game's main story, and it gets better and better as you progress.

As for the routes, the "endings" concept in Taroverse games is misleading. While his earlier games had you redoing a lot of content, Drakengard 3 and Automata are far less tedious. In Automata, route B is the same as route A, but critically, sidequest progression carries over. So you can blitz through the whole route super fast by just redoing the main missions, and you'll be doing it with a new gameplay mechanic and new narrative beats throughout.

Then, endings C, D, and E are attached to the same route, which is all new content. So basically, you play route C (which is funtionally the last third or so of the game), then ending D can be unlocked in like, a minute, and then E auto-unlocks after that. So there's no more narrative repetition after B is completed.

As for combat, I was in the same boat as you when I started. Automata makes no effort to teach you to play it in a stylish way. But you can! If you're like me, then you're just not using the pod enough. So much cool stuff is possible when you abuse the pod. Check out some combo videos to get an idea of how you can push things, if you want to have more fun with it. For instance, here's donguri being donguri (there's a route C spoiler in this video, cut it off before 4:45 if you don't want to see it).

 

[fantomena]

Finished


I liked it a lot. Not sure if I found it better, worse or just as good as 7 yet, but I liked it a lot. The story was interesting, especially the "twist" at the end, the world building was great, the level design of the Village was great and the graphics were nice, in some parts really gorgeus and the game ran great on my PC. The characters in the game had nice dept to them and I liked them all I think and I found Ethan's story to be tragic. The gameplay was good too. The negatives are that the puzzles could have been difficultier, the game could have been more scary and I wish there were more things to interact with, like I didn't understand how the devs figured out what things can be interacted with and what cannot, some interactive objects didn't have anything in them to get. I overall really enjoyed exploring the Village and different parts of the game.

Overall a great game that could have been even better with more interactivity, difficultier puzzles and being more scary.

Score: 8.5/10

 

[Ge0force]

Finished Dirt 5


As a huge fan of Evolutions previous games, I was really looking forward to Dirt 5. While disappointed that this game has nothing to do with rally anymore, I really liked the excellent track design, arcade-style controls and amazing graphics.

I do agree with the many people criticizing the campaign tho. Dirt 5 only has a dozen unique tracks, and while there are plenty of types of races, you 've seen almost everything the game has to offer after two hours of play. The rest of the campaign is repetition of the same tracks and racing types. I don't understand why they didn't keep some events and tracks to unlock in later chapters of the campaign to keep things fresh.

The difficulty balancing is also very weird. I played on hard difficulty, and some of the races were incredibly easy, while others are near impossible to win.

Don't get me wrong: I had lots of fun with Dirt 5 and it's definitely worth buying in a sale. But it could have been a much better game with more tracks, better balancing and more variation in the campaign.

Score: 7.9/10

 

[ganmo]

Same for me.

good to hear I'm not the only one

 

[Ge0force]

Finished Red Alert Remastered (Allied campaign)


I was in the mood to replay Red Alert once again, and it's still so much fun! The diversity in units, map design, variation in campaign missions and of course the music are truly excellent! I hope C&C Remastered sold well enough for EA to greenlight a brand new C&C with classic pc-focused gameplay.

Score: 9.4/10

 

[AHA-Lambda]

Finished Silent Hill HD Collection (XSX, via 360 BC)

Yes, yes, I know I know the HD collection is terrible but I got it for only £6, and it is obviously much more accessible to get these days than the PC/PS2/OG Xbox versions.
That being said, going in with my eyes open to the problems as a first timer to these games, it wasn't that bad, most especially in SH3's case.
The biggest fault is obviously the fog, everything else honestly seemed fine to me.

There is "a rolling wall of fog" effect going on that gives you a field of view of whats around you much wider than I expect was intended.
You can also see in many cutscenes some areas that you're obviously not supposed to see (like the scenes around the dock having no water just seabed)
The worst effect though is easily walking around town when you can see enemies spawn in around you, as they jump out from the side of the screen to then chase you; its very unintentionally funny to watch.
However in SH3's case, the game takes place so little in any fog filled environments that the complaint is almost moot.

Past the technicalities and as for the games themselves though:

Silent Hill 2
I was shocked at how much I enjoyed this. Yeah we all know that it's a revered classic but even still 20 years on my first experience with it really floored me.
I am someone who has grew up with horror themed media from a very young age, it takes a lot to unnerve me and this game done that on multiple occasions, most especially in the prison area. The atmosphere throughout is so thick with dread and tension, it's just wonderful. It may well have the best sound design I’ve ever experienced in a game, not something I typically pay any mind, but the ambient BGM does do much of the legwork to heighten the tension

I found the plot fairly strong too, not to the extent that it has been praised I feel, but it is 20 years on after all, I was aware already of much of the main plot beats and the themes it tackles are not quite so unique in gaming as 20 years ago, even if it is still rare for AAA content to tackle.
The combat though feels mostly like a non event though but I admit this may have been partly my own fault as I set it to easy (I played SH1 back in the day as a kid and couldn't finish it due to running out of ammo at a boss, so wanted to avoid that).

I can definitely see why people love this game though and that it would have been incredible at first release.

9/10

Silent Hill 2: Born from a Wish
This is basically just an extra side story, lasting no more than an hour, and akin to the mini epilogues you get in some of the Resi games (like Ada in RE4).
It's really just a small extra area to explore with a short inconsequential story.

It is what it is, and is fine for what it is.

6/10

Silent Hill 3
This one was interesting, as it made me appreciate some of SH2's aspects in hindsight all the more actually.
This one is much more a traditional survival horror game, following the template quite rigidly. 3 big things separate this from SH2:
1) the plot is nowhere near as good, it's not a personal tale of tragedy like SH2, it's a continuation of SH1's cult plotline
2) it actually mostly doesn't take place in the town, and for the most part I found this really weird to see the normal world "infected" with monsters as so
3) the big one, it has much more combat encounters than SH2

As I said I thought SH2 erred a little too much on the easy side tbh; there are few encounters, enemies don't have much variety and you're showered with health and ammo. Sh3 is the exact opposite in each of these points BUT the game's atmosphere is nowhere near as effective as SH2's. It really did feel to then prove that less is more, this game did not scare me really at all unlike SH2.

On the whole it's a solid if unoriginal survival horror, that pales next to a classic

7/10

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

I've been on a bit of a gaming binge to take advantage of Microsoft's 1:1 (Up-to-10000) Gamerscore-to-Rewards-Points conversion promotion during the month of May. Due to a mix of not having a lot of time for gaming, being able to take advantage a 30-days-of-Game-Pass promo-code I had saved (which Microsoft extended to two months when I decided to use it, nice) and a certain skeptical curiosity, I played three games I had previously dismissed as probably-not-my-kind-of-thing.

Here's what I thought about them, in the order I played them.

Tell Me Why (DONTNOD / Microsoft, 2020)

A self-described "narrative adventure", this game may, strictly speaking, still be a point-and-click adventure, but it really feels more like an interactive premium cable TV show. The game centers around two young adult twins who meet again after being apart for years to take care of the estate of their late mother - and are led down a path that has them unravel the dark past of their family and the small town they used to live in and can't wait to get away from.

Pro:

• The art direction in this game is simply fantastic. I don't think I have ever seen any game before that made me feel like watching, as mentioned above, a premium cable TV show, like this game does. Set in rural Alaska, the game hits you with some amazing scenes right out of the gate and never stops bringing more of them throughout the rest of the game - and not just in cutscenes or other non-interactive parts either. The soundtrack is just as polished, with some 50 minutes of original score by Ryan Lott of Son Lux and a near perfect selection of five licensed songs which, again like in a well-made TV show, deliver an extra emotional punch at just the right moments. Character animation and modelling is also very, very good, so is the ambient noise and Foley work. This game is simply a joy to look at and listen to.
• What really stood out to me and contributed to the whole TV show feel of the game is the amazing virtual camera. The angles, the movement, the zooms and pans, it really sets a new benchmark for games, especially adventure games.
• I very much liked the writing in this game, too - the scenario, characters and story beats are all quite believable and the game for the most part avoids manufacturing big drama out of nothing and instead subtly builds up people, the setting and the fundamental mystery at the heart of the story - and even lands a believable conclusion. It also takes a couple of laudable risks for this type of game, such as actually making the player read a good couple of pages worth of story within the story in order to be able to solve a couple of puzzles (with a brute-force alternative solution for those who absolutely are not so inclined, but still).

Con:

• Personally I did not dislike anything about this game, but the general criticism for this type adventure game that in large part really wants to (and in this case also manages to) be a big budget TV show experience, still applies: Actual game-play can sometimes run a little thin and at other times seem out of place for being too video-game-ish. One example for the latter is the fact that this game does have missable achievements, some tied to collectibles - and the staple DONTNOD collectible-mode chapter replay to help out those who miss them. I wish the designers and producers would have had the courage and confidence to just dispense with those in this game.

A pleasant surprise throughout. I have to admit that I had some preconceived notions about this game based on second-hand-knowledge about Life is Strange and they turned out to be wrong.

Previously reviewed in this thread here, here, here and here.

5/5


Life is Strange (DONTNOD / Square Enix, 2015)

To quote the original promotional website for the game: "Life is Strange is a five part episodic game that sets out to revolutionise story based choice and consequence games by allowing the player to rewind time and affect the past, present and future." So, a modern point-and-click adventure involving time-travel and lots of dialog. Young adult Maxine "Max" Caulfield has just returned to her childhood hometown to attend senior year at the local private high school on a photography scholarship and has a disturbing nightmare - or is it a waking vision? - in the middle of class. A mere minutes later, a traumatic incident in the school's bathroom reveals she has gained the capability to rewind time for a few minutes - and things only get stranger from here on out.

Pro:

• The quoted blurb above is not wrong: Compared to earlier games of this style, specifically those made by Telltale Games, this game is a lot more cinematic and is not shy about taking away control from the player for extended periods of time to roll out a story beat, set a scene or enhance a mood - and it worked a treat for deepening my immersion.
• The art direction deserves partial praise, particularly for the audio - the game has a very, very strong soundtrack, with a mix of licensed indie-folk-rock tracks from all over the 00s and early 10s as well as an original soundtrack by Syd Matters. The ambient sound in each and every scene is also remarkably well done. Character design and animation is also very good, with respect to the limitations of Unreal Engine 3, which at times are quite visible.
• I particularly liked one feature of this game: A lot of scenes in the game have these little meditative moments, where you can have the player character sit down and have some reflective internal monologue while the game cuts and pans around the scene you're in. These moments feel neither video-game-ish nor wanna-be-TV, but genuinely original.
• Ultimately the story and characters did manage to connect - enough so that I immediately bought the prequel Life is Strange: Before the Storm and plan to also play Life is Strange 2 as well as its teaser/side-chapter "Captain Spirit" as well as the next installment of the series "True Colors", which is due to be released this year. However ...

Con:

• The writers of this game eschew subtlety at every possible turn and instead opt for big drama, over-the-top dialogue that very often crosses the line into awkward, corny and/or unbelievable territory and generally put almost every character in the game through the ringer in order to get an emotional response from the player, stopping just short of Tomb-Raider-2013-levels of torture for the sake of character and plot development. A lot less would have been so much more here, particularly less trolley-problem-style choices. If Tell Me Why feels like premium cable, this feels more like network soap opera, albeit SciFi/mystery flavored.
• The visual aspect of the game suffers from Unreal Engine 3 not consistently being up to the task of delivering the creators' vision, but the game still targeted 7th generation consoles and apparently sacrifices had to be made.
• Towards the end of the game you will encounter some immersion-breaking bugs with the lip-sync facial animations, which six years after release is pretty inexcusable in my book. Bets can still be placed on whether the upcoming remaster will fix them or not (or introduce brand-new ones).

I ended up liking this game a lot more than I thought I would (particularly after the first episode, which made me seriously consider retiring the game early). Curious to see how the sequels/prequels are like - will post about them here.

3.5/5


The Walking Dead - A Telltale Game Series - Season 1 (+400 Days) (Telltale / Skybound, 2012)

Another story based choice and consequence game, perhaps THE early defining game of the genre. Protagonist Lee is in the back of a police car on the way to prison, convicted for a crime that isn't immediately apparent, but seems to be serious. But a zombie apocalypse gets in the way, and one car accident later, he finds himself in a backyard where he meets 8 year old Clementine, left home alone with her parents far away on vacation and her guardians nowhere to be seen.

Pro:

• The art style pays tribute to the comic roots of The Walking Dead franchise and looks pretty good even now - at least in cutscenes.

Con:

• The writing of this game is just abysmal. Zombie apocalypse scenarios already make it pretty hard to deliver believable stories, since the premise is so utterly absurd (which is why I've been avoiding most Zombie-based entertainment for years and years now), but there is usually room at least for interesting characters or slices of life under duress. Not so here. This game might as well have been called "Trolley Problems - The Game". Every plot-point, every character trait, almost every line of dialog is wrenched towards leading the player to another supposedly tough choice, none of which managed to have any emotional impact on me due to the absurd ways in which they are manufactured.
• Telltale's in-house game engine at that point in time had several pretty obvious shortcomings - the most obvious one in this game is that the character animations just stop in whatever frame they happen to be when you hit an invisible wall in a scene, making for some pretty unintentional funny poses. There are also plenty of bugs left in the game after all these years and despite its success, which can get you stuck and require reloading from a previous auto-save point.
• Music and audio are pretty weak, the ambient noises in particular seem very obviously canned. The zombie noises are not particularly great either, but at least effective for the most part.

I honestly have no idea why this game was so successful and what people saw in it. Some of the story beats suggest to me that it's been made with a quite specific American audience in mind, too, which just left me more alienated. I might play the sequels, since they are all on Game Pass right now to see if maybe later games are better, but this one was a big disappointment and I had not high expectations in the first place.

2/5

 

[lashman]

Tell Me Why (DONTNOD / Microsoft, 2020)
5/5

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Replayed and finished What Remains of Edith Finch (Giant Sparrow / Annapurna, 2017)

Played this a couple of years ago on PS4 and now replayed it on Xbox One for an easy 1000G (and 1000 Microsoft Rewards points). It's a narrative adventure (of the walking simulator kind), but contains multiple flashback sequences which get more interactive than that. The whole game in fact is a giant flashback - and the protagonist, Edith Finch (jr.) talks you through it as you control her visiting the estate of her late mother and extended family.

Pro:

• Walking simulators live or die by the art direction and presentation and this one not just lives, but will probably be remembered as an impressive technical showcase for Unreal Engine 4, for both the fascinating level of detail of every interior and the seamless loading of each scene - you will not encounter a single loading screen or please-wait-spinner in this game. Music and sound are also very good.
• Very original story that keeps a big distance from any known video game trope.
• Some of the more interactive, more game-ish parts of the game are quite unique. Ever wanted to play a tentacled sea monster on the prowl or a toddler in a bathtub? Here's your chance!
• In a surprising twist this game also turns out to be a prequel to Giant Sparrow's first game, The Unfinished Swan.

Con:

• As whimsical as the story and the little stories-within-the-stories are, for me there is a certain tonal inconsistency that left me puzzled when I originally played this game and still does on replay. The narrator's voice-overs are always on the somber side, but the story goes all over the place from comedic to tragic, with excursions dipping into magical realism, horror schlock and psycho-drama. I literally don't quite know how to feel about this game. That might be a success rather than a failure. Not sure.
• Once more, silly missable collectible achievements that don't add anything to the game.
• On Xbox One, you get massive texture pop-in, but only at the very start of the game and when skipping to a particular chapter / memory from the start screen (this feature unlocks after completing the game once). Strange oversight.

It's unique, it's technically brilliant, it's highly original, but also a tad odd. And, genre-inherently, not much of a game - notably much less of a game than the all-around brilliant The Unfinished Swan.

4/5

 

[fantomena]

Finished


With the charater Axel. Fun game, nice graphics and sound and tight gameplay. Im not particularly good at beat'em ups so I found the gameplay to be somewhat repetive, but that is because I mainly button smash, I don't really use any stategies which I assume I am suppose to, so that's on me. Took me almost 3 hours to complete the story mode with Axel, might try some of the other characters in the future. Overall a great beat'em up game.

Score: 8/10

 

[AHA-Lambda]

Retired Way of the Samurai 4 (PC, Steam)


I briefly gave my thoughts in the main thread and they still hold true.
The appeal of the game is in the branching, replayable story and wackiness but I never got far enough to appreciate either.

Quite simply
The port is technically problematic (multiple crashes at first boot, and alt-tabbing continues to cause crashes)
The production value is clearly poor (poor graphics were already obvious but the sound mixing is dreadful)
Crap/basic combat
No direction whatsoever (the game gives a couple of very brief tutorial boxes on combat during the first fight and then let's you on your merry way, many other mechanics (such as life and vitality) are simply not explained)

I passed the first in game day by fumbling around through the consulate story path, then got to a fight in day 2 where I got totally trounced and turned it off

 

[Ge0force]

Finished The Tenth Line


Very charming game with amazing story telling and great characters, music and dialogs. The battle system is well designed but gets rather repetitive after a while; you'll be using the same attacks over and over again and there isn't much room for variation or advanced tactics. Still worth playing for the overall experience tho.

Score: 7.0/10

 

[Mivey]

Finished Bayonetta

I knew that this was one of the earliest games of Platinum Games, formed by former Capcom developers. Among them Kamiya who was responsible for the Devil May Cry games. And boy is the DNA of DMC all over this game. Except, it doesn't feel like a simple copy of the DMC, rather a spiritual sequel that tries to take many elements in DMC to the next level. More style, more self indulgence. Much longer, and more involved cutscenes in every story mission. And where Dante, aside from DMC3, was usually fairly quiet as a protagonist, Bayonetta is everything but.

The gameplay also features some really interesting ideas, how to combine physical attacks and shooting in a seamless blend that feels much more interesting than even modern DMC games that came after this. The only thing I didn't really like so much where the addition of quick time events, and the button mashing needed for special attacks.

The setting itself is pretty cool, though again clear allusions to DMC with a universe where there is a eternal struggle between devils and angels, and an order of witches and wizards aligned with either hell (Inferno) or heaven (Paradiso). The idea of a shadow world (Purgatorio) is kinda interesting, as it explains how our hero can do all this crazy stuff without people all over the world finding out about it.
The actual plot is pretty bog standard. but in this type of game probably the least interesting thing anyway.

Something that was especially interesting to me was how much of Platinums "DNA" as a game developer is already present in this game. Be it Nier Automata, or Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, you can see how this title already has so many gameplay elements they referenced and refined in their later games.

Overall I'd recommend this to anyone who liked the DMC games and wants to see a very fresh take on this genre, even a decade after it came out.

I rate this game 7 out of 7 Umbra witches.

 

[fantomena]

Finished Shadow of the Colossus (Playstation 5)

Really hard to write a review/thoughts of this game as it's quite the odd/out of the ordinary sort of game. I've had it since launch, tried it multiple times, but not until I checked a walkthrough on IGN on how the game, how to "start it" did I understand the game.

You are given a introduction, footage of your character traveling a place and he places his girlfriend on a shrine (she's dead). And that's it, you have to figure out what to do and the gameplay out yourself. The landscape/environment are beautiful, but empty. The music is great, especially the music when defeating a boss, it's a sad kind of music making me feel sad for defeating the majority of the colossuses, I mean, they never really hurt me in any way, THEY didn't attack me until I attacked them. You have to find 16 colossus whioch are like big enemies you have to defeat, most of them are easy and can't even kill you. It's like a beautiful boss rush game. It's really the travel to the bosses and finding them that took most of the time. You have to use your sword to find the bosses, sometimes it's somewhat difficulty.

The worst part of the game are the controls. Controlling the horse is for the most part, especially in close places really frustrating. I died a few times taking down a colossus which was because it was difficulty to control the horse. There are some platform sections, not many thanksfully because platforming is also difficulty due to the controls.

I did wish the landscape had wildlife or something not to make it empty though.

Took me 3h52 min to finish the main storyline, I guess you can also explore the whole map and discover all the shrines (save points), but didn't bother.

Overall a short, yet sad and beautiful game with really frustrating controls.

Score: 8/10.

 

[Wibblewozzer]

Finished Shadow of the Colossus (Playstation 5)

I did wish the landscape had wildlife or something not to make it empty though.

Took me 3h52 min to finish the main storyline, I guess you can also explore the whole map and discover all the shrines (save points), but didn't bother.

Score: 8/10.

There is some wildlife. There are birds, which I believe if timed really well, you can actually leap off your horse and grab a bird. Also, there are the lizards to hunt that upgrade one of your meters. Can't remember which one. Probably grip? But overall it is fairly empty.

There's also fruit that can be found that upgrades another thing (probably health?). So while empty there is a bit to do if you take the time to explore and really look around.

 

[Stevey]

Finished Subnautica: Below Zero.

Really enjoyed my time with it (21 hours) - I've seen people complaining about the story, but to me it was a nice, chilled crafting game.

8/10

 

[Stevey]

Just Cause 4, retired after 4 hours.

Not feeling it at all, game feels really rough, just a chore to play really.

3/10

 

[didamangi]

Finished:

Immortal Fenyx Rising. Finished the main game. Enjoyed it enough to finished it. But like with all open world Ubisoft games, at the end I just want to finished the game and not doing the side quests anymore. I don't mind the humor in this one, story was ok-ish. Have not yet tried the 3 DLCs. 7/10

Ghostrunner. Had a great time with it. A little jankiness in wall running is my biggest complaint, very fun game otherwise. Hopefully the sequel improves everything about it. 8/10

Resident Evil VIllage. Standard difficulty. I dunno. Maybe re 7 and 8 type of gameplay just isn't for me. I had decent fun with the game but not as much as I love playing and replaying the re2 and re 3 remake. 7/10

 

[MegaApple]

Just Cause 4, retired after 4 hours.

Not feeling it at all, game feels really rough, just a chore to play really.

3/10

How's it compared to JC3 (or even 2)?

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Finished Life is Strange: Before the Storm Deluxe Edition (Deck Nine / Square Enix, 2017)

A mechanically similar prequel to Life is Strange, centered around one of the main characters of the previous game and her friend, which in the first game is missing and part of its central mystery.

Pro:

• The new developer switched the engine from Unreal Engine 3 to Unity, which upgrades the visual details a bit, but overall the art style is so similar that you might not even notice the difference. The game otherwise retains the high production standards of the first game.
• The writing dials back the soap-operatic drama quite a bit and in general the dialogue of the main characters now consistently comes across as believable. There are still some eyebrow-raisers in the lines of minor side-characters, but nothing that really took me out of the moment. The story also does not contain a supernatural element like the first game's main character's ability to rewind time, adding to a general feel of plausibility.
• The DLC "Farewell" adds a short prequel to the prequel and reintroduces the main character of the first game, at that point without supernatural abilities, which is really well done and worth playing.

Con:

• The last of the three episodes suffers from a somewhat abrupt and overloaded ending - the story could probably have supported four episodes rather than three.
• The DLC episode contains a serious bug in the Steam version, which causes the episode to hang during the opening cinematic and can only be worked around with temporarily setting CPU affinity in Windows task manager on affected machines. The bug has been in there since release, is subject of a pinned thread containing hundreds of posts in the Steam community forum and is still not patched - despite developers acknowledging its existence in the thread!

Enjoyed this one more than the first game - I don't think it would make much sense to play it without having played the first game beforehand however.

4/5

 

[Stevey]

How's it compared to JC3 (or even 2)?

Not as good IMO, just feels unpolished.

 

[ExistentialThought]

Somehow managed to finish a few games

Resident Evil 7 (PC) (Action horror)
I already had the story and elements of the game spoiled for me prior to playing, which delayed my desire to play until the sequel was released. The first hour or so was interesting. Game starts to fizzle as it goes on. After the intial opener, there was a lack of interesting environments and a major lack of enemies. All enemies felt spongy, which made any attempt at invoking survival horror turn into action horror since every encounter felt like unloading a flurry of bullets into bland blobs. Felt longer to play than I actually played. Still appreciated aspects of the game, especially the more horror bits and the general idea of the family antagonists. Not much more to say that has not already been said by many others. Still need to play through the DLCs at some point, though feel little reason to ever replay the main story. Maybe 7 out of 10.

Resident Evil 8 (PC) (Action horror)
Since I had RE7 spoiled for me when it released, I wanted to play RE8 earlier to avoid spoilers, which I was able to for the most part. Enjoyed this game significantly more than 7. The game just had so much more variation across the board. The story could be seen as better or worse depending on your tastes, but I loved it more than 7s story. It just had fun with the characters and the world building. Unlike 7, I feel compelled to play more of this at some point. Since it is so new, I do not want to say much more. 9 out of 10.

Donut County (PC) (Casual Puzzle?)
I knew beforehand not to expect Katamari Damacy, but gosh it would have been nice if it borrowed something from Katamari. The game acts like it wants to be a casual puzzle game, but the puzzles felt way too simple and it never felt like I needed to pause for a moment to figure anything out. Pretty short to boot, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but I would have liked a few challenge stages, mod support, and/or an open mode (a la Katamari start small and grow as big as possible mode). Something just to add a bit of spice upon completion. 7 out of 10.

 

[sk2k]

Retired after two hours: Maneater

The most boring game so far this year.

 

[bobnowhere]

Retired after two hours: Maneater

The most boring game so far this year.

Yeah, it was bad but I forced my way all the way through. The whole game was meme first, gameplay and everything else a distant 2nd. No wonder Timmy wanted it. His long quest to force a viral hit continues without success.


19. Mass Effect 1 - Legendary (Steam) - Still as amazing as it first was. The mechanics are completely changed to be more like ME2 and ME3 but the RPG is still there somewhat. Great characters and grand scale not seen before or since. ★★★★★

20. Mass Effect 2 - Legendary (Steam) - Barely an RPG but does the moments as well as ME1. A more insular personal story and kind of drags near the end when all you end up doing is making people happy to die. ★★★★

21. Higgs-Bosun: Minimal Puzzle (Steam) - Short puzzle game where you rotate elements to form a path for the particles to follow. Starts simple, but once multiple elements rotate when you rotate one based on it's colour the difficulty ramps up. Too short though, needed more of the more complex puzzles. ★★★ 1/2

22. The Wild at Heart (PC Gamepass) - Delightful pikmin-a-like. Standard metroidvania formula, slowly collect the five types of of sprite with different abilities to expand your ability to explore the world and solve the various puzzles. Beautiful artwork and sound. ★★★★ 1/2

23. Mass Effect 3 - Legendary (Steam) - I had only ever played this one once so it was far more fresh. A decent combination of me1 and me2 mechanics, mods and leveling wise. Good gun-play and heaps of stuff to do. Plenty of fun story that pays off and even the red/green/blue ending is better than I remember. Or less shit. ★★★★

24. Maneater (PC Gamepass) - More meme than game, fun enough for free in gamepass, pity the poor people that paid full price for it. Interesting idea but almost completely hollow of anything content wise bar collect-a-thons. ★★ 1/2

25. Train Station Renovation (Steam) - Weirdly compelling way to waste 10 hours, that kinda describes 90% of playway's games. Use the right tool to fix issues, start out placing furniture correctly but by the end it's hand warmers and benches as far as the eye can see. ★★★

26. Metro 2033 Redux (Steam) - Never played the series before playing Exodus on PS4 so I went back to the beginning. Doesn't outstay it's welcome and the design is top notch. Lots of weapons and upgrades and even on spartan mode I was running very short of ammo in the last couple of levels. ★★★★

 

[Wibblewozzer]

How's it compared to JC3 (or even 2)?

I wouldn't even say it's just that in some areas it doesn't play as well. It actually is improved in many gameplay ways so it kind of events out there. At first I was way into the feel of it. But the actual mission structure is horrible and it really gets away from the proper destruction goal of things and focuses way more on really bad goals with just a lot based on protecting NPCs as they run through an area or hack. The non-story missions are generic and way too long and the story missions can be pretty fun but short with a lot of boring grinding to get to them.

I could say a lot about it. It's heavily flawed in its design. I had fun occasionally but there was a lot of problems between that.

 

[didamangi]

Not sure if it's because of myself or if it's because of the game camera, but sometime I felt a bit motion sick when I play this game. So be cautious if you are going to play Supraland

Have you tried:

• Raising the FOV to 90-100?
• Disabling motion blur?
• Disabling chromatic abomination?

Three of those things are the main culprit for me if a game gave me motion sickness in FPS.

Just in case you want to play the DLC if you haven't.

Supraland - PCGamingWiki PCGW - bugs, fixes, crashes, mods, guides and improvements for every PC game

www.pcgamingwiki.com

 

[Mivey]

So here a few thoughts for a few games I finished a while ago. going to be shorter since I don't have a lot to say about each of them

Metro Exodus: The Two Colonels (DLC)

This explains the story of Novosibirsk. It's the first time the series explores how people survived the nuclear war in another city, instead of Moscow. And it mimics the story or Moscow, except for two key differences: Novosibirsk was hit with a much more dirty bomb than Moscow was, or at any rate closer to the radioactivity, which makes survival, even underground, far more difficult. But they happened to find large amounts of a new wonder drug (called "green stuff") developed by the Russian state in the last days before the apocalpyse. It allows to withstand even large amounts of radiation unharmed.

The story cuts between Colonel Miller, the leader of Spartans, who is helping Artyom find a cure for his daughter who is suffering from a strange illness , and Colonel Khlebnikov, who was a loyal and decent soldier in the final days before the city fell. It explains how the city was running out of the green stuff and planning an evacuation, and how the city slowly collapsed due to infighting.

I found the story not super appealing. We do not get enough time to really get to know much of the Novosibirsk Metro to really care about its demise. The actual gameplay was also not really interesting given the open world we had in the main campaign. It still looks really great in the Enhanced Edition, but I think this DLC can be safely skipped.

If on a winter's night, four travellers

The game is clearly a love letter to post-modernist writer Italo Calvino, and his novel "If on a winter's night, a traveller", and I certainly started playing this expecting something well.. post modernist and evoking the craziness, the chaos and wittiness that Calvino is so good at.
Ultimately, it's not that. Four fairly simple stories, each very similar in its overall themes. There really isn't anything in this as a video game that truly challenges its overall confines as Calvino's work usually does when it comes to writing and books. Nothing about this feels particularly novel or original, let alone "post-modernist". Everything is very simple to interpret, and fairly clear. No ambiguity, no self reference, nothing murky, but a crystal clear plot.

Which is fine! It's a good game. But it doesn't feel to me like it's living up to its title or near namesake.


Halo; Reach

I am a bit conflicted about this one. On the one hand, Reach has arguably the best campaign of the 3 Halo games I played so far (the others being Halo 1 and 2). On the other hand, I don't think I overall liked it much better than Halo 2. It's clearly not as rough as Halo; CE, for sure.
I think my real issue is that Halo just continues to be a boring hallway shooter, with very predictable enemies, and encounters that don't allow much variation, leading to the campaign feeling incredibly repetitive. The one moment in the campaign that really stuck to me, was the moment when you conquer that tower. There was great narrative push, a clear visual goal and a level fully designed around both these things. I loved that moment when you were finally at the top of it.
But from there on out, the game just meanders to more and more hallways. The plot is a wash, you already know what's happening to Reach, and seeing team Noble slowly getting killed isn't super interesting, dramatic, or sad. As the characters themselves say, they are soldiers, dying for their country is what they do. It eschews any emotion, and it's thus also hard for me to care. In that final level when Noble 6 fights against an ever ending swarm, I felt .. nothing. Just another faceless grunt dying, in the world of Halo that's just Tuesday.

Started Halo 3 recently, and at least initially it's more interesting, but let's see if that keeps up.

 

[ganmo]

Have you tried:

• Raising the FOV to 90-100?
• Disabling motion blur?
• Disabling chromatic abomination?

Three of those things are the main culprit for me if a game gave me motion sickness in FPS.

Just in case you want to play the DLC if you haven't.

Supraland - PCGamingWiki PCGW - bugs, fixes, crashes, mods, guides and improvements for every PC game

www.pcgamingwiki.com

Thanks for the tip, I'll have it in my mind in case I decide to play the DLC

 

[DesolationStone]

Halo; Reach

I am a bit conflicted about this one. On the one hand, Reach has arguably the best campaign of the 3 Halo games I played so far (the others being Halo 1 and 2). On the other hand, I don't think I overall liked it much better than Halo 2. It's clearly not as rough as Halo; CE, for sure.
I think my real issue is that Halo just continues to be a boring hallway shooter, with very predictable enemies, and encounters that don't allow much variation, leading to the campaign feeling incredibly repetitive. The one moment in the campaign that really stuck to me, was the moment when you conquer that tower. There was great narrative push, a clear visual goal and a level fully designed around both these things. I loved that moment when you were finally at the top of it.
But from there on out, the game just meanders to more and more hallways. The plot is a wash, you already know what's happening to Reach, and seeing team Noble slowly getting killed isn't super interesting, dramatic, or sad. As the characters themselves say, they are soldiers, dying for their country is what they do. It eschews any emotion, and it's thus also hard for me to care. In that final level when Noble 6 fights against an ever ending swarm, I felt .. nothing. Just another faceless grunt dying, in the world of Halo that's just Tuesday.

Started Halo 3 recently, and at least initially it's more interesting, but let's see if that keeps up.

Halo Reach was truly criticized after his launch, but after 3/4 he became one of the most, if not the most, beautiful Halo. He has problems, first of all: the focus of the game it's the Noble Team, but no one of the characters it's truly characterized, except Jorge

Spoiler

But he died after 4 missions, lol

. Another problem with the plot it's that it's too short: after 5 missions you've already seen the majority of the fall of reach, with only a "big" land battle (the one that you've described). Talking about the gameplay, Reach has the most advanced A.I. of the series, good variegation of missions (the one in the space and the exploration of fallen New Alexandria), and a lot of new stuff, but also introduce the armour ability, that destroyed the balancing of multiplayer, that ironically was the real motivation why reach it's so loved by the community, with Forge and custom maps was a true masterpiece in 2011. In the end, Reach had also probably the most beautiful art style of the series and the community most loved armours. It's overvalued, that's right, but he had a special place in the hearts of the fan.
Regarding Halo 3: he had some epic missions and a truly funny multiplayer, but, as for reach, the plot imho was too short

 

[fantomena]

A lovely puzzle game with great artstyle and 30 puzzles. Wish there were a bit more varation in gameplay though, but otherwise great.

Score: 8/10

 

[sk2k]

Finished: Backbone

5/10


Not worth the base price of 24,99 Euro. It is short and took me 3 hours to complete it.

The artwork is gorgeous and that's it. It's not an adventure. It's more like a visual novel. The game ended abruptly without any conclusion.

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Finished The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit (DONTNOD / Square Enix, 2018)

A short (1-2 hours) playable spin-off / teaser for Life is Strange 2. Young teen Chris wakes up in his room on a Saturday morning in December, with plans in mind to work on the superhero persona he has come up with for himself. His Dad however, seems in less of a good mood ...

Pro:

• DONTNOD came back doing the development on this game in the Life is Strange universe and so did Unreal Engine, but this time it's Unreal Engine 4 and consequently the visual polish is taken up another notch, with everything else remaining at the same great level of fidelity seen in the previous Life is Strange games.
• For people who have been yearning for more of a challenge in Life is Strange games, this one features an (optional) endless runner mini-game, with fail states and a high-score, that you can access through a mobile phone - but only if you manage to solve the puzzle of correctly guessing the phone's password, which again isn't trivial and can't be circumvented.
• The writing here is a noticeable step up from the Arcadia Bay games - gone are the exposition dumps through voice-over monologue and pre-filled pages of journals. The dialog and character writing is also on point and had me hooked and invested within ten minutes of playing.

Con:

• The writers however are still fond of setting up quite a heavy-handed scenario to squeeze more emotional juice out of the story. It works, but after I finished the game, I could not help but wonder if perhaps young Chris' parents could have been a little less conspicuously stricken by drama without the game losing any poignancy.

4/5

 

[Ge0force]

Finished Warhammer 40k Inquisitor: Martyr (+ Prophecy expansion)


Interesting aRPG made by the devs of the Van Helsing trilogy.

What I liked:

- Excellent action-focused combat. Throwing a grenade in a group of enemies, jumping in the middle of the explosion with your jet pack and finishing off the remaining enemies with a chain saw sword feels incredible.

- The ability to increase the difficulty for every mission (with higher rewards) is superb, since lots of aRPG's are way too easy. In the random missions you can use tarot cards for extra challenges (and rewards) which is great as well.

- Lots of loot, crafting, enchanting, improving gear and upgrades in over a dozen categories make the game very addictive.

- Built-in clan system with additional rewards.

What I didn't like:

- You have only 4 skills to use in combat and the skill set depends on your weapon. There is no unlocking of additional skills later in the game, which makes it rather repetitive after a while.

- Graphics are mediocre. The base game lacks variety in environments and many objects are re-used over and over again. Luckily the expansion adds several new and unique environments.

- The game requires a permanent internet connection for no good reason at all.

Score: 7.8/10

 

[MegaApple]

Interesting aRPG made by the devs of the Van Helsing trilogy.

How does it compare to Van Helsing?

 

[Ge0force]

How does it compare to Van Helsing?

Martyr is more focused on action and gathering loot, while Van Helsing has better character and skill development. Personally I enjoyed Martyrs combat, setting and level design more. Being able to fine tune the difficulty level in Martyr is a huge plus for me.

 

[ganmo]

Finished Endless Space 2


I actually finished 5 games for a total of 50 hours. It's a very decent 4X game with lots of different buildings and tech upgrades, and the additions compared to the first game in the series are great. But as a huge fan of Total War Warhammer 2, I really miss playing the battles myself instead of picking a strategy and watch the auto-battle fighting them for me. This makes the game rather repetitive after the first 100 turns. [UWSL]I also find it weird that all factions have the same tech tree, despite the fact that all factions are supposed to play differently. This is the main reason why I didn't bother to buy the DLC. [/UWSL]

[UWSL]Score: 7.5/10[/UWSL]

I'm 3h into my first game. I'm more or less just clicking around and telling myself I know what I'm doing, but I don't know.
I think I'm quite focused also when playing it... Not sure what I want to think about it...

 

[Ge0force]

Retired Wolfenstein 2: The new Colossus

[UWSL][/UWSL]

[UWSL]Wolfenstein TNO and it's expansion are my favorite FPS games of last generation. But I couldn't motivate myself to finish The New Colossus. It's not a BAD game really, but everything is so uninteresting that I didn't have fun playing it at all: the story is complete nonsense, the characters are annoying, the environments are forgettable and you're encountering the same enemies over and over again. I'm not sure what went wrong at Machinegames since they are obviously very talented folks, but this game is a huge disappointment for me. [/UWSL]

[UWSL]Score: 5.0/10[/UWSL]

 

[Ge0force]

Finished Anodyne


Excellent game that borrows the basics from the early Zelda games, but adds a lot of fresh ideas and gameplay elements. Most of the dungeons are very good, clear maps prevent you to get lost, there's a decent variety in enemies and bosses and the soundtrack is great. Very recommended!

Score: 8.8/10

 

[fantomena]

Finished Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (Playstation 5)

Very fun and solid game all around. The most beautiful game I have played so far, nice sound and music (especially with headphones allowing me to use 3d audio). Well-crafted planets and variated ennvironments. The planets have collectibles and some side quests to do and they are actually fun to do. The rift part of the game is good and fun, but you can't open a rift to another dimension whenever you want or use a rift to reach another part of the map/planet, this is decided by the devs when you can use rifts. Gameplay is tight and solid. Story is also actually quite good. The ending was nice, but felt somewhat abrupt (?).

This game is overall beatiful, fun, tight and solid without any noticable flaws other than 2-3 bugs I came across. The problem with Rift Apart is that it doesn't really do anything new or innovate the Ratchet series gameplay in any way. It's the same combat system, weapons and the core game is the same, just more solid and beautiful all around. The Rift part of the game is fun, especially at the start, but since I can't use them when I want tghey don't really bring much new to the gameplay.

Basicallyy Rift Apart is the most beautiful game I have played and the game is a lot of fun, variated and gameplay is what I have seen before in terms of combat and other things. It lacks innovation for the series basically.

Score: 9/10

If I had not played any Ratchet & Clank games before it could actually have been somehwere between 9.5-9.7 only negative is some bugs I came over. Lack of innovation drives it down for me.

 

[mssq]

Finally finished Metro Exodus EE.

Core gameplay is still solid and the Enhanced Edition is one of the most impressive game visually.
Sadly I think this is the weakest in the series. I really didn't find the open-world with side content direction interesting. The main plot is good enough to pull you through the game, but everything around that is abysmal. Like every npc in this game; their mouth moves, but they say absolutely nothing worth of listening. Around halfway through the game I gave up with them and ran past everyone who tried to talk to me. lol
I think the last chapter is the strongest one because it ignores the open-world structure and focuses on the main story.

6/10