Last Game You Finished And Your Thoughts V3.0

Yeah, me too! I keep thinking "I can't believe I haven't played R-Type in over 20 years!" knowing full well I'll play it for 5 minutes and get impatient.

gjones wrote:

Will you be trying Jak II?

I don't think I will. I understand they make Jak a dipshit, where his original non-existent personality was just fine! Noy yet anyway...

Was £1.20 on Xbox One, that I thought I'd give it a bash. It's a first-person platformer set on a island where you climb up on blocks trying to hit switches to bring more of the island up to move one.

It is about 20mins long for your first go and there is two speed-run achievements with one being under 4mins.

Very simple and basic game, 6/10



Played this thanks to Game Pass after all these years, and I can see why Jay has always spoken highly of Brothers. I think this sort of indie has been bettered but you don't see many with this CO-OP mechanic.

The ending wasn't surprising but I was surprised about the fantasy themes of it.

I think a Switch version would be great with a Joy-Con each.

Anyway Brothers gets a 8/10 from me

Oh wow, that was your first time playing Brothers? Properly put a tear in my eye, just with a vibration and a trigger.

Yep some how I've never got to it and as I've got Game Pass at the moment which is rather brilliant and before my 99p sub end, I'd thought I'd get through as many games as possible and why I'm now going to move on to Hue which is about 3-4hrs long (I think).

Monster Hunter XX



I mean, obviously I'm not done, there's always loads more I can do in singleplayer never mind finishing off G-Rank multiplayer with the lads. But I got the credits on this last night.

Banger, obviously. Playing this game I love with proper analogue sticks, in HD, on the nice TV and on the go interchangeably . . .absolutely wonderful. The fact that it is a 3DS game under all the spit and polish holds it back ocassionally in the technical department, but the core gameplay is untouchable and I'm sure I'll be more than happy to put another 120 hours into this in the new year.

10/10

Not a game, but...


It's been a fine old console, but unless Sushi Striker turns out to be the game of forever, I'm done with it.  I polished off my last game on it today, meaning I'll be giving The Lady back her machine, and since my machine now powers-off at random and I have a new Ninty handheld, it's Game Over for one of many little handhelds that could.

Overall, I've been happy enough with it.  There's been nothing that's quite scratched the very upper echelons of gaming for me, apart from ports - no Ghost Trick, or Ace Attorney T&T, or (you knew it was coming) Meteos.  Instead, there's been a large number of games in the tiers just below.  ALBW, Luigi's Mansion 2, KIU, Spirit of Justice.  It's also the first time I really felt we've had console-quality games on a handheld, seeing as I grew up with the 64 rather than the SNES: yer Zeldas, DKCR, and the like.  

I feel like it didn't quite have the madcap innovation that the finest DS games had.  Nothing like the aforementioned Ghost Trick, or TWEWY, say.  Even the Zelda was safe compared to the DS Zeldas (albeit better for it).  Luckily, it did have something I'll miss a whole bunch: backwards compatibility.  As we've been saying to GJones in another thread, he can essentially get his kids the best of two machines for the price of one.

And I liked the glasses-free 3D.  I thought it added to games.  I'm not overly sad it's gone, but I enjoyed it while we had it.

Finally, the whole 'New 3DS' idea can bog off.  I hope we never see another mid-gen. power leap on Nintendo systems again.  We will though.

Also Metroid: Samus Returns:

Snowballadeer wrote:

Finally, the whole 'New 3DS' idea can bog off. I hope we never see another mid-gen. power leap on Nintendo systems again. We will though.

We've seen it 3 times from Nintendo and we will see it again.

I finished what is my 3rd Game Pass title Hue which some mates of EofGiz where behind / involved in. I had been meaning playing it for ages but as it was on Game Pass and wasn't something to taxing (some puzzle can be tricky) I started it whilst in bed ill.

It is a neat puzzle platformer where you use a colour wheel where you can change the world around you to move on, I could see it be a decent Switch title as it is very pick up and play.

7/10

Pokémon Gold



What a charming demake of Pokémon Sun this has been! It features a brand new region called 'Johto', and even lets you visit the first generation region, Kanto. Breathtaking generosity. The lack of running shoes is a bit of a pain, and it's tough to forget about Abilities (hitting Flying 'mon with Ground moves?! Preposterous!), but really a lot of fun. I set up a particularly poor team for the Elite Four but got through with lots of Revives and Restores. In the end, though, it's perhaps a touch slight for the modern era.

14/20

I reached Super Mario Odyssey's credits with 200-odd Power Moons the other day. Do you know how games sometimes ship with some reviewers' comments on the cover? Little King's Story on the Wii had that, with NGamer Magazine giving it 92% and saying "the first classic of 2009? It could well be...". If I were to do that for Super Mario Odyssey, I'd give it 10/10, and I'd say that it is "bellend-shatteringly good". It's a modern classic.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2018



Ok, so the game itself can't be finished but I have just won La Liga and the Champions League with Lorca FC (first season I was bottom of the Spanish second division). It's taken me 6 seasons on Top Player which isn't bad and I can see myself revisiting it from time to time as it's incredibly addictive.

Visually, the game isn't that great, particularly when you use the regen players the game throws at you each season, but the gameplay is impeccable. Once you master the nuances of the game like the Super Cancel and the Finesse Shot it feels like you can score any type of goal. The game has a ton of modes and I'm only starting to thrash teams in Master League - there is still the Become a Legend mode, myClub mode online and the various online challenges/tournaments. The problem with PES 2018 is that when the gameplay is so addictive and constantly rewarding, the issues with the game become harder to ignore. If I won four games on the bounce, the fifth game I would always get battered like 6-0 by a lower team - the opposition would be stronger, faster and more clinical despite being 60-65 (Average Team Rating) when mine are 80-85. It is clearly scripted when this happens and while it does add artificial challenge, it is incredibly frustrating and, well, cheap. There are few cosmetic things that irk me - I made my manager look incredibly ugly and he had a blue mohawk, yet the manager on the touchline is just a generic bloke with short brown hair.

Silly things aside, the game is the best football game ever made. With the licenses installed (and they look incredible), there is no reason to even contemplate FIFA. Yeah, Sensible Soccer is up there but PES blows it out of the water in terms of constantly rewarding the player in Master League. I don't know how Konami can improve the gameplay in 2019 - other than some of the scripted bits.

10/10

My Club has ruined PES for me which is a shame, I can't help going back to it because it's satisfying when you're doing well but incredibly frustrating when you're not, I should just stick to the offline modes like Master League which are much more fun overall. I still think the game has it's gameplay issues but you're not wrong when you say it's the best football game ever and it will likely continue to be.

Aye pretty much agree with all of that you's have said on PES, the biggest annoyances for me are that the buying/selling players in ML still isn't that great of a system where you often pay over the odds just to get someone half decent & in general gameplay you get lot of moments where you win a ball cleanly only for the players to collide unnaturally seconds afterwards and the CPU deems it a foul.

But that aside I'm still absolutely loving the ML mode especially now that I have an SPL option file.

I have last year's PES, which is great if pretty much age with all the gameplay comments. My critique of master league would be that as a mediocre team (up the forest) you have to pay over the odds to mildly improve your squad as Jas says. A season or two in though, once regened players start turning up, your youth team renders the transfer maket, and much of your starting squad, obsolete.

In 2018 they did add a different mode of ML but if I remember correctly it only makes transfers tougher & if you don't perform you get the sack.

That isn't very appealing to me when transfers are already annoying because you need to win a lot to get cash (around a season or two) not only for your transfer budget but salary budget as well. For example I have 42 million in my transfer budget but because of the players I've brought in I am in debt on my salary budget and I can no longer buy without selling a good chunk of my squad, I wouldn't have got into this mess if the game just let me set the terms of the deal(s) to begin with.

All I want is a simple system where you search for a player, set the terms like: length of contract, salary, bonuses etc then it'll give you a percentage on how well the deal will go. The older PES games basically let you do this so I don't think it's too much to ask for.

(nods vaguely and apologetically in direction of footie talk)

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

If I were to do that for Super Mario Odyssey, I'd give it 10/10, and I'd say that it is "bellend-shatteringly good". It's a modern classic.

Yass. Never mind the modern, this game's an outright classic! We'll be looking back on 2017 in years to come and thinking how lucky we were, I'd warrant.

Before the Storm has no right to be as good as it is, on paper it looks like Square is milking the series with this prequel from relatively unknown Deck Nine and not Dontnod, along with season 2 and a TV series still to come.

Can it all work? Well so far yes as BtS is hella good over it's 3 episodes as Chloe Price with her new bestie Rachael.

I've seen hardly anyone talk about BtS especially how many people seemed to play & enjoy Life is Strange.

9/10, yeah it's that good plus the soundtrack has Wolf Alice

I beasted through SteamWorld Dig 2 over the last couple of days. I thought that this was truly brilliant - an excellent sequel to an already great original. As Zero Jones said, "it's a much bigger, brighter adventure with far more to see and do than the original", and it's beefed up in a lot of meaningful ways that really benefit the gameplay. SteamWorld Dig 2's combat, exploration, secrets and platforming are as good as any other Metroidvania I've played in the last few years - my only gripe is that the credits came about a bit sooner than I'd have liked. Still, 9/10.

Another fan of SWD2, I see! Good good. Cracking little game with lots of personality and charm. Those of you with it in your backlogs would do well to play whatever you want to, natch. Just... get around to it eventually.

VS. Super Mario Bros.



Cleared out today. I went through all 32 levels to play spot the difference and VS. is a fair bit harsher than the original... but that's all I'm saying, as I know a few of y'all are wanting to play it too.

16/20

Steamworld dig 2

I can only agree with what Zero and Cappuccino Kid have already said about the game, great fun and Fen has to be one of the best sidekicks in game ever! Love the quirky humour and the whole steamworld universe that Image & form have created.

I got £10 worth of PSN credit for christmas and I'm thinking of using it on both Steam World Dig and Steam World Heist, I've heard nothing but good things. Both of them are on sale currently, so I'd even have a little change left over.



I downloaded this a while back as it was one of yer PSN Subscription games. It definitely shows its age, not so much from a graphical standpoint - it looks pretty fine and its nice to see Seattle in videogame form - but from a control standpoint. Games like Batman: Arkham Knight/City just flow so much better, and while there's a nice bunch of superpowers available here, everything from punching to zapping or running up buildings just feels clunky. It's better than the PS3 original, wherein your character seemed to be magnetically attracted to various surfaces regardless of the controller input of the player, but there are going to be plenty of occasions where players will get stuck against a wall, hit the wrong thing, or jump to the wrong platform in this one too.

There's nothing clunkier than the storytelling though, which true to series form gives players the choice between being nefarious or nice. Like the original, unlocking further abilities is tied to having a specifically high/low karma level, meaning there's no real room for a morally grey playthrough from a mechanical standpoint. To compensate, the game's bad goes through a bunch of big government/other generic negative traits to allow your character to justify killing, rather than incapacitating, thousands of soldiers - presumably the idea being that you can gradually see your character morph into a more evil state should you elect to go for an EVIL playthrough, without having your character be irredeemable from the get go, but it all feels rather by the numbers. That'd all be more forgivable if the game allowed you to skip through cutscenes, but you can't. It's as if the studio is really proud of what they've written, forcing you to watch every second, when there's nothing noteworthy here. The story isn't terrible, but it's certainly annoying having to watch every cutscene, even if you're entirely uninterested.

Even so I've had a good time going through this, having finished an EVIL playthrough and nearly finished a GOOD playthrough. You accumulate a nice variety of Smoke/Neon/Video based powers in a fight against concrete powered baddies, and the map is a good size. It totally lacks the handcrafted feel of Breath of the Wild, varies tasks seem arbitrarily placed, but there aren't too many of them which makes collecting things and checking off side missions a welcome palate cleanser from the main storyline.

As clunky as the controls are, and as uninspired as the narrative is, there's still something quite enjoyable under all of that, even though its hardly a world beater. Superpowers are fun.
7/10

It was great when it came out but I can see it being a good launch title which now 4 years later has been topped multiple times.

L.A. Noire



What a game. Absolutely stunning piece of software. I've talked about my issues with the interrogation system and there are a few minor niggles (some of the textures flicker when nothing's moving, there's pop-in, all drivers bar me go INSTANTLY when the lights change, the story doesn't seriously get going until about five-eighths of the way in (accuracy at all times)) but that aside, I've thoroughly enjoyed everything that's gone on. Even the side missions, by the end!

18/20

Overcooked

Absolute belter of a couch co-op game. Accessible, addictive, and varied enough too. Occasionally I feel like the controls aren't quite there in some of the more challenging levels, but nowhere near enough to mire the game overall.