The last few games you beat and rate them III

[Commander Clueless]

Batman - The Telltale Series

I've seen this game catch some flak, probably because it's yet another Telltale game.


For me personally, this was my first Telltale game and I loved it.

While I felt like the game could have relied more heavily on consequences for its decision system than the QTEs, I still enjoyed it thoroughly. It brought back memories of a choose your own adventure book. I definitely understand the criticism of "illusion of choice", and wish they were a little more varied and harsh with the consequences.


Graphics weren't special and a bit glitchy. Voice acting was great. The story was an interesting take on the typical Batman saga. I want more.

 

[The Mars Volchenkov]

Batman - The Telltale Series

I've seen this game catch some flak, probably because it's yet another Telltale game.


For me personally, this was my first Telltale game and I loved it.

While I felt like the game could have relied more heavily on consequences for its decision system than the QTEs, I still enjoyed it thoroughly. It brought back memories of a choose your own adventure book. I definitely understand the criticism of "illusion of choice", and wish they were a little more varied and harsh with the consequences.


Graphics weren't special and a bit glitchy. Voice acting was great. The story was an interesting take on the typical Batman saga. I want more.

Can't wait for season 2. I've enjoyed the Telltale games but that was the first one where I felt like my choices actually mattered.

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

GTA: San Andreas - PS2

9/10

 

[guinness]

Nier Automata: cumulative of the 3 main endings: 7/10 (extra point for 2B and A2 artwork specifically)

It's weird for me to be so blase about a game I sank about 45 hours into, but the A2 series was the strongest, and the 9S weakest, but I felt there were too many huge plot holes (androids are apparently ****ing stupid) for me to care terribly much about the characters, other than Devola and Popola; I thought that was genuinely sad.

Additionally, the traversing of the same terrain, over and over got tiresome, especially since 9S's story is essentially the same as 2B's, but in order to get most of the decent endings, at least 3 playthroughs are required. Weird balancing too, hard in pockets, easy with chips otherwise.

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

GTA: San Andreas - PS2

9/10

Update: After beating it, I went back and finally hit 100% completion last night.

 

[Unaffiliated]

Dark Souls (PC)

9/10

Loved it. Having played games like Fable and Skyrim and stuff before and finding the mechanics and combat in those games totally lacking, it seems this is exactly the single-player RPG-style game for me.

The XBox 360 Controller I used to play had problems with the LB button, so I was forced to mostly go 2h weapon-ing instead of using a shield, but that's probably what I would've done anyway. It got really annoying in a certain area where you need to hold a lantern and run around, since the lantern kept going up and down as the input dropped and came back.

While I enjoyed the difficulty, some parts felt a little too punishing, where if you missed some small secret you'd be forced to replay content you've already mastered over just to make it to one struggle spot. Some parts also felt balanced for having a shield, which was frustratingly unreliable for me but not really the game's fault.

 

[guinness]

Tales from the Borderlands (PS4 edition) - 9/10.

Literally had me laughing at times from the dialog and loved the animation, but framerate issues were annoying.

 

[Commander Clueless]

Aragami


Not sure what to rate this game, but I did enjoy it. The mechanics using light and shadows are very interesting.

It is a little short at 4-5 hours and does get repetitive though. Unfortunately, I also had a few crashes during the final boss battle. Frustrating.


Still, I think I got my $20 worth for sure.

 

[Bocephus86]

Witcher 2 (Enhanced Edition): 8.5 (probably 9/9.5 if I hadn't done TW3 first)

Was fun once I got into the swing of things in Flotsam (maybe half way through that Chapter). I already completion-isted (...) Witcher 3 and the DLC so it was hard going "backwards" in terms of game play but it was still a great game. Biggest annoyance for me was the controls/pathways - there is no swimming or jumping (really) so it was annoying to see a "cut through" and have to still follow the path because Geralt can't take a step up over bush. I played on PC too and it was a little frustrating that the left mouse did basically everything (interact, pick up, attack, "jump" up, open door). I got to the point where I'd just stand still for 10 seconds after a battle then go around looting/moving onto the next area. Now, I'm sure I could have remapped the buttons but I didn't easily find it (and didn't really look) so take that complaint with a grain of salt.

I went with Roche in Chapter 2 so I'm going to go back and try again with the other path. Then might play Chapter 3 again from both play throughs for that major decision.

I wanted to finish it yesterday so I think I rushed Chapter 3 but, overall, it is worth a play through though the payoff at the end felt a little underwhelming - I felt they were setting up for a little more than I got and I don't think what I was waiting for will be there in any of the other decision play throughs.

All in all, very worth the 10 or 20 bucks I paid for it; probably had about 40-50 hours to complete it (with a fairly rushed chapter 3).

Great set up for another Witcher 3 play through, this time on my new gaming PC (vs PS4) so I can see the better graphics and visuals. One thing I'll say for the Witcher 2: It looked on my PC like the Witcher 3 did on PS4.

 

[The Gongshow]

RE7 (was 8.5/10) gonna drop that to 7.5/10
Horizon Zero Dawn : 8/10
Outlast II : 8.9/10

RE7: Started off great, lost most of its scare factor when the big weapons got introduced. Over all story is well done, some things could have been better but all in all great survival horror game. Solid pacing as well, gives you some room to breathe before the next scare or tense moment.

The Bakers where straight up nuts and scary as ****. Some of them could have been used a tad better but for the most part they were well done. Each had their own sub genre of horror, which was awesome. Ending left a few questions unanswered, guess we'll have to wait for the next game (which is basically guaranteed with the success RE7 had)

Horizon: Action adventure and robot dino's!! I found myself really involved in the story and wanting to know more about the mysteries surround project Zero Dawn and what happened to the world before it turned into the setting for Horizon.

The game looks fantastic and ran smoothly. The combat never felt stale to me. While levelling up there was still moments where I didn't overpower enemies/machines. My one complaint is the final boss battle didn't feel big enough. It was leading up to something great then fell flat. There was a bit of a mystery ending that can continue the story in another game if Guerrilla Games decides to continue Aloy's story.

I never grew tired of collecting items and fighting any and all robots I saw.A lot of RPG's can be overwhelming to me with upgrades and crafting but this was a pretty tame but effective RPG. It didn't overwhelm me like Witcher 3 did. (Not a huge RPG guy but have started to slowly get into them)

Outlast II: This game was a complete mind f***, in the best way. The atmosphere was amazing. Unlike RE7 where certain parts of the game were to calm down and relax, Outlast 2 barely if at all let up. Constant dred as I played. The game seemed and felt a lot more "open world" but at the same time made me feel trapped and claustrophobic. It had the jumpscares, blood and gore, really messed up stuff/scenery.

Some of the "bosses" (people who have played Outlast will know what I mean when I say bosses) didn't seem to leave as much as an everlasting effect like the first game and DLC did. One extra encounter with Knoth and Val would have made it so much better, help spread out their backstory a tad bit. Blake (main character) was much better than the other two main guys from the previous games, Blake had a personality, this helps when the character actually speaks and reacts to whats going on, unlike in the previous games where there wasn't any dialogue.

Ending was a little..meh.. but another title or DLC will help answer some questions. Can't wait for the next instalment...even though it will be a while.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Just finished off another run through Mad Max on my new computer. Still good, still fun, but a little same-y same.

 

[aleshemsky83]

Dark Souls (PC)

9/10

Loved it. Having played games like Fable and Skyrim and stuff before and finding the mechanics and combat in those games totally lacking, it seems this is exactly the single-player RPG-style game for me.

The XBox 360 Controller I used to play had problems with the LB button, so I was forced to mostly go 2h weapon-ing instead of using a shield, but that's probably what I would've done anyway. It got really annoying in a certain area where you need to hold a lantern and run around, since the lantern kept going up and down as the input dropped and came back.

While I enjoyed the difficulty, some parts felt a little too punishing, where if you missed some small secret you'd be forced to replay content you've already mastered over just to make it to one struggle spot. Some parts also felt balanced for having a shield, which was frustratingly unreliable for me but not really the game's fault.

You should play bloodborne if you havent, its a much better designed game with a different twist on the dark souls combat. Dark Souls was famous for having an insanely rushed development. Just as a tip, you will in all likelihood only need the weapons and armor you get at the start of the game on your first playthrough so don't obsess about different armors and builds

 

[Unaffiliated]

You should play bloodborne if you havent, its a much better designed game with a different twist on the dark souls combat. Dark Souls was famous for having an insanely rushed development. Just as a tip, you will in all likelihood only need the weapons and armor you get at the start of the game on your first playthrough so don't obsess about different armors and builds

I did 2h claymore on my first playthrough and uchigatana + parrying dagger on my second, both of which you get in Undead Burg, so I'm used to the concept

edit: I don't have a PS4, so guess I'm outta luck eh

 

[Unaffiliated]

Witcher 3

7/10

Top-notch world-building and dialogue system, engaging sidequests, pretty compelling main story, frustrating controls (especially on horseback and when climbing things), lackluster combat.

The things it does well are generally things I don't really care about in a game, and the things it struggles or fails at are the things I care most about, so the fact I finished the game at all is a compliment to it, I think.

 

[KingBran]

Zelda: BOTW - Possibly the best game in history but still pretty high on it right now.

Mega Man 2 - I think I beat this game at least once a month. Still a classic!

Skyrim - Probably beat this game once a year. Still holds up. Amazing game.

DOOM - Much better than I expected. Really really fun game. They were able to capture arcade essences but still keep it a "new" relevant DOOM game.

Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag - Absolutely the best AC game I have played (I have played them all). Ship battles got old after a while but the story and environments and exploring were so great!

 

[Ceremony]

The following is a double feature:

LittleBigPlanet, LittleBigPlanet 2 (PS3, 2008/2011)

In a previous life I remember playing the demo for LittleBigPlanet. I was entranced. Here is an adorable little platformer with a twee soundtrack before I even knew what twee was. It has Stephen Fry narrating! You have chunky, block-like platforming! What a marketing boon for Sony and PlayStation here. To quote the Zero Punctuation review of the first game, Sackboy, the "happy" looking thing in that gif, is perhaps the best avatar possible for the generation. Entirely featureless and indistinguishable. Representing everything and nothing at the same time.

Here are two games I ultimately didn't get much enjoyment out of at the time and definitely not so much in the past few months when I played them. What is there to say about them? I think in posting about both of them at once necessitates a comparison. It's certainly clear that LBP2 is a better game. The graphics and effects are crisper, the more varied gameplay mechanics such as grappling hooks and shooting allows for a much wider range of level design elements. Imagine playing Mario in black and white without any mushrooms or Koopas. Then playing the real thing. None of upgrades feel out of place either or especially gratuitous. Swinging when grappled on to something is handled terribly from a controls perspective but that's about it. All of the visual aspects of the game are improved. Absolutely no complaints here.

This isn't to say that the gameplay of LBP is something to complain about. It's functional. It's nice. It's your standard platformer and I think it's interesting to consider that these games predate Minecraft because in terms of the actual composition of the levels my understanding of Minecraft tells me that they're quite comparable. It's all centred around the theme of construction. Of building the levels through basic materials and then adding things with wheels and bombs to them. Kiddy's first video game. Then LBP2 comes and makes it infinitely more complicated. To the credit of the people making the levels, they're quite good at it. LBP2 offers at its most basic level a much harder singleplayer campaign and a scope for much greater creativity in the user-created content area.

On the subject of the user-created stuff, that really is what the game is supposed to be about. You hae the basic elements, you find stuff in the story levels, if you're really weird you can make stuff and share it with people. Here's my problem with the creative element part though. You can go online and find a near endless amount of things to play. Clones of every game you've ever heard of, every genre imaginable, you'll never struggle for something to play. What you won't see when you do this is the innumerable amounts of stuff made specifically to get trophies quickly. And you won't see the efforts people like me would put out if they tried to actually make a decent level. There's an infinite amount of tutorials - all in Stephen Fry's voice remember, the voice he aims at 7 year olds - telling you how to do everything. Including making all the stuff that's in the story levels that you had no idea was created by composite parts at all.

And here is my problem with these games. Aside from the commentary, the stuff aimed at children which I'm fine with, it's the creativity. The creativity isn't suggested, it's implied. Playing all the user-created stuff is fine and if you really enjoy the game and don't tire of its paper thin mechanics within five minutes then you'll struggle to find better value for money, but it's the fact that this is rendered essential that annoys me. I don't know how people can make the ultra detailed levels. The complex ones, with the vehicles and the music cues and the brains and the paths and the collectibles and the measured distances and everything working in sync. I don't dislike the games or this element of them because it's outwith my abilities, I dislike it because it's made so unavoidable. That it's presented in exactly the same way as a kindly British voice telling you how to jump and make a funny face or move your arms about like you're seeing in that gif.

You know the Simpsons episode where their house starts sinking and Homer watches The Half-Assed Approach to Foundation repair starring Troy McClure and it's an endlessly-paced specialist walkthrough for how to fix a house? That's me watching those tutorials and trying to make a level. I'm stood in front of the TV without the most basic tool necessary while someone's explaining the most complex thing imaginable without pause. I don't see where the benefit from this is supposed to come from for the average gamer.

I feel strange having focused so much on this technically optional part of the game which I've made very little use of but the base game is so shallow and forgettable it's hard to consider them without the create aspect. Going from game to game there isn't much to say except that LBP2 looks a bit nicer and offers a bit more of a challenge. The aesthetics are distinctive, but forgettable. When you're playing them they're often overbearing. I'm glad I have my trophies and am quite glad to be rid of them.

 

[Commander Clueless]

Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons (PC)


I'm not going to try to give this one a rating, but what a neat little game. While the puzzles aren't that challenging, they are pretty interesting with the control scheme of one brother for the two sides of the controller.

A heartfelt narrative despite the lack of coherent dialogue and striking visuals make for a short but very sweet experience.

You've probably all played it already since I'm behind the times, but if you haven't, I highly recommend it.

 

[Ceremony]

Ace Combat Infinity (PS3, 2014)

I'm not sure how to qualify "beating" my first Ace Combat game. The first free to play entry in the series has a single player mode, but it's eight missions long. And not all of it was available when the game was first released. And you need in-game money to unlock the later missions. I'm pretty certain you need 2-3 million credits to unlock all the missions. For reference I've played this for over 200 hours and got 48 million. I'd quite like to get the millions I spent on the non trophy-dependent missions back.

I've never played an Ace Combat game. I'd never even heard of the series until this was released in 2014 and I downloaded it because it was free, before routinely bottling it at the suggestions it would take 300-odd hours to get all the trophies. For some reason in December last year it reappeared in my head and I've played it daily since the beginning of 2017. Now, here we are. They're tricky with the whole F2P thing, it's not unlimited. You get, effectively, one go every four hours. One new unit of fuel. You can store some of these supplied fuels or unlock stocked fuel by getting it in drops after missions. Of course you can buy stocked fuels at truly awful prices. I think it's something like £28.99 for 60. This is bad. Extremely bad. And going by the ranking leaderboards for the monthly challenges there have to be people being given it. I have a score in one now of ~120k, the eventual winners end up with scores in the multiple millions. Coming to the game three years after it came out and with no more real updates I've benefitted from having lots of opportunities to get fuel. I'm glad I've never had to pay for it though.

So, what do you do? The bulk of the regular game is in online co-op missions, where you have a playing field and a number of targets to destroy. You have a total of six minutes to finish each mission and when you start you have no idea how this can be enough. Trying to turn your flying toaster to fire about eight missiles to kill one helicopter, it's a nightmare. I will say that what I can remember of the learning curve in this regard is brutal. The layout of the menus and the upgrades don't help much with this.

Once you decide to stick with one plane and upgrade it a bit you get to see a marked difference though. You soon find yourself actually contributing, or feeling like you are, with adorable scores of 20/30k. It really is hard to try and judge the game when I was crap and had crap planes with now when I'm still crap and have marginally passable planes. There's a good variety of missions (most of which have been added since its release) so even though I've been dedicated to playing it daily since the start of the year I've rarely been bored. Each mission offers unique challenges even beyond the mix of air/ground enemies, although you're only allowed four slots for building planes (unless you pay, obviously) so I was hampered slightly in having to decide quite early what planes I should have and to stick with them. Of the different classes available I've gone with a Fighter (best at airborne targets) and an Attacker (best at ground targets), it's pretty pointless to try and add a Multirole somewhere as well. The amount of time it would take to get the money and XP for them to make them worthwhile would be... well, unavailable, probably. The servers would be closed by the time I got anywhere.

Back to the actual missions though and the other part of the word, co-op. You play with random punters online and herein lies something of a problem. It's not what you expect of online games that have been out a long time. It's not full of extremely good people who just destroy everything right away. There are people even now more useless than me. Seeing people with matching rates below the starting point of 1500 surprises me, but then I too only started playing it recently. That doesn't mean I can't hate them for being utterly useless though. Especially when they ruin everyone else's attempts to fully beat the mission. Still, the competitive nature that's brought in when you know what you're doing is what really makes the game so engaging. I think after three years and several updates they've really managed to get a good balance between all the planes and weapons - I've seen complaints from way back about certain planes being overpowered and I've not really found that to be the case myself. When I first started playing I would look at the planes people getting huge scores were using, of course when I tried I got nowhere. Come to think of it I'm sure I played a game last week where someone in a terrible plane was regularly outscoring everyone else in the room. Player ability is much more important than the planes for the most part, which is a good thing. Whatever happens in AC7 with the online they've got a good base here.

There isn't much else to say of the co-op missions besides them being centred around blowing up as much stuff as you can. Occasionally there are team deathmatch events, of which there are three types:

Regular TDM, straight plane vs. plane
Naval TDM, where you're at sea and there's an enemy fleet to destroy/one of yours to protect
Ring battle TDM, where there's rings in the air you can capture

They offer a nice change from time to time but by this point they're really for the dedicated. For what I said about there being a good balance in the co-op, in the deathmatches, not so much. I've not played nearly as many and although I manage to luck into a spectacular result once in a while you just get flattened too much for it to be fun. The difference between manoeuvrability and damage of players compared to CPU enemies is unbelievable. Missiles going at about ten times the speed, planes moving in every direction at will, it's beyond me. Regardless of what plane I'm in.

If I'd stuck with this game from 2014 I might have a different opinion of it now. I might have given up, I might have completely adored it. In my experience from the start of the year it's something that my paranoia about an impending inability to finish the trophies has been rewarded for. The dedication of players over those three years suggests I might have loved it. Just tonight I was playing with someone who I've seen before who had a "2013 Beta Tester" emblem on his flight. If that's not a testament to the game I don't know what is. Regardless of when you started the game I would probably say that the first month of regular playing is a nightmare - when you know what you're doing the competitive spirit will overwhelm you.

 

[Ceremony]

Dirt 3 (PS3, 2011)

In all of my racing video gaming history I've only ever had one game of the Colin McRae Rally lineage. The first one. I tried to actually finish a championship all the way through sometime recently (which is probably at least a year ago) and never managed it. I got to one country, Sweden I think, that was a snow/ice stage and I just couldn't. I think it was one of those annoying original PlayStation era racing games where you had to reach a certain threshold in each race to get to the next one, and I was miles behind everyone else. Even looking up gamefaqs guides for car set-ups didn't help me. Even when I first played that game though I enjoyed it. The cars felt food and the level of detail for a game that old is spectacular. The dirt/dust building up on the car when you drive through mud shows how in-depth the detail is too.

Fast forward an amount of years and as Colin McRae is no longer with us, neither his name on the games. From Colin McRae Rally to Colin McRae Dirt to Dirt, Codemasters are still here still putting out rally games. At least now there's no coherent sense of a championship or career progression to put you off, and there's six difficulty settings to choose from. The Dirt Tour forms the bulk of the game as you go through an assortment of different off-road race types in no particular order. There's your basic rally stages which are all quite short and similar, there's trail blazer which is done in hill climb vehicles without the hills and which are rally stages without a co-driver. There's no difference at all. Then there's rally cross which is a mixture of off-road and tarmac and against other cars, that's always fun and is the sort of carnage you'd expect. Then there's land rush which is rally cross without the tarmac and with everyone in the same vehicle, trucks or buggies. The trucks which handle like oil tankers and the buggies which handle like those toy cars kids have with monster truck engines in them.

This is about half the other game. The other half is gymkhana, which is effectively stunt driving. Apparently it's quite popular on youtube. It involves an assortment of spins, drifts and jumps in a wildly overpowered Ford Fiesta that oversteers the instant you accelerate. One amusing aside in these sections is getting to hear from chief youtuber and Top Gear guest Ken Block, who is good at this sort of thing if not at real driving. His voiceover is hilarious. Jeff Gordon's inclusion in Gran Turismo 5 became a meme and if this game was more popular Kenny would have suffered the same fate. Brutal. Dirt 3's gymkhana events are just as bad and epitomise the main problem with the game. The first gymkhana event is a tutorial showing you how to do each type of trick. I start, they're pretty much impossible. I look online for some clue on how to do this, get told to put on an assist called "trick steer." Now I can do donuts no problem. There's a guide on the ground too so you can see just how precise the assist makes you. Without it the tricks are impossible, with it they're impossible to fail. And despite this, the time targets for events (ie do so many tricks as quickly as you can) offer no margin for error. I don't know it's possible to do these without the assists. The disparity in difficulty here isn't as bad as in all the other events though, as the difficulty options I mentioned earlier are a joke. They also seem really inconsistent. When I started I was on 4 and winning races by a margin of under a second at times, it was a decent challenge. Then I started winning by ten seconds at a time. Upping it to 6 didn't change this. For what is a pretty repetitive game anyway, there seemingly being no challenge in it doesn't help this feeling. I think the gymkhana stuff is better if you do it in multiplayer, there are a few competitive game modes but even then the cars slide too much for me to think I'd have any fun doing it.

This repetitiveness isn't helped by the structure of the events as I mentioned. There's a good variety and they're all quite short so you can rattle through them quickly, but there's very little difference regardless of where you are or what you're driving. Most cars handle the same, although when you use one of the few rally cars from the 60s/70s you really notice the lack of four wheel drive. But then you can pick what class of vehicle you want to use in the majority of these situations, so it's moot. The voiceovers from previous Grid reviews return, a woman and the most irritating Australian imaginable telling you how amazing you are after every race. "That was awesome! Put it on youtube!" Or when you miss the time for a platinum medal in one of those gymkhana events, "Gold! That looks good on you!" Get to **** mate I'm doing this again and you know I am. The graphics, menus and some of the soundtrack are a similarly cacophonous assault on the senses. Manchester Orchestra and Biffy Clyro are good, everything else is terrible.

I played the online for this game several months ago when it was first included in PS+. I had great fun. Adding in a consistent challenge and a level of unpredictability from real life players was a big improvement on everything else I've described in the game and maybe it's better if you mix the two up. Battling with people in ugly Imprezas round a tiny Monaco street layout, trying to not ram them at corners and being let back through by someone who took you out, I was quite surprised at how good the online community was. Pretty much every game mode here was improved. It felt like you want a racing game to feel, like every corner matters and you have to push as hard as you can while still trying to beat people. It hit that mixture better here than anywhere else, which is quite a shame. Especially since the game and its DLC were delisted about a week after it was on PS+. I know it's old and you can't expect it to stay up forever but that was a ****** move.

The only other thing I've not covered is the looks. Considering it's six years old, it's good. There's a range of different weather conditions, day, night and it all looks almost hyper-realistic. There's one array of rally courses in Michigan (I don't know if the roads in them are real) and when you drive through them at dusk you see leaves blowing off the trees, it's a really immersive and realistic environment you're in. I don't know why I didn't use the in-car camera for any of the game but when I got the related trophies at the end I had to and it would probably have helped. The one drawback I would have to include about looks, there's a lot of cars in the game. Real cars, classic rally cars. When you drive them in the Dirt Tour, the main game mode, you have an assortment of liveries linked to pointless sponsor objectives you have to try and hit. But then if you drive them in "single player" in time trials you can put on the original liveries. A Celica in the classic Castrol colours. Imprezas in blue and yellow, blue and white Fords. It's a really petty and irrelevant thing but if you drive these cars in a game you want to see the classic paintwork. It really annoyed me, finding this after 35+ hours of driving.

All in, it's a decent time sink that looks pretty but doesn't have enough variety to be really memorable. Mainly because the variety seems completely at odds with the actual racing aspect of the game. The online offers a challenge and actually feels like what the game should have been, but based on my Gran Turismo experience I doubt we'll ever have AI that's actually good enough to race like people.

 

[SniperHF]

I played the online for this game several months ago when it was first included in PS+. I had great fun.


Especially since the game and its DLC were delisted about a week after it was on PS+. I know it's old and you can't expect it to stay up forever but that was a ****** move.

Dirt 4 comes out next month. All the Codemasters games tend to get delisted due to expiring licenses.

I play Dirt Rally quite a lot, it's a substantially more technical rally only game. Dirt 4 is supposed to be a hybrid of Dirt 3 and Dirt Rally: the variety of D3, the improved upon physics of DR, with endless procedurally generated tracks thrown in. The last bit is actually a let down for me since I love the real world locations in DR.

Most cars handle the same, although when you use one of the few rally cars from the 60s/70s you really notice the lack of four wheel drive.

In Dirt Rally every car is kind of its own experience. Dirt 3 feels like playing an EA NHL game from 2001 right after playing the latest one.

"That was awesome! Put it on youtube!" Or when you miss the time for a platinum medal in one of those gymkhana events, "Gold! That looks good on you!" Get to **** mate I'm doing this again and you know I am. The graphics, menus and some of the soundtrack are a similarly cacophonous assault on the senses. Manchester Orchestra and Biffy Clyro are good, everything else is terrible.

Thankfully most of this garbage is gone as well

 

[The Merchant]

Plat'd Horizon a few weeks ago and it is unquestionably one of the best open-world games I've ever played. I can overlook its few flaws for the incredible experience it gave me through and through. 9.5/10.

 

[Ceremony]

BlazeRush (PS3, 2014)

In lieu of a description of what happens in this game, have a read at the Wikipedia page for it which is entirely factual and in no way can be construed as a promotional item: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blazerush

So then, a top-down racer with weapons and boosters and a few different game modes. As far as the mechanics go it's not much different compared to any racing game you've played with combat, except the cars can't actually be destroyed, just knocked off the track. Although this doesn't sound too drastic the resulting frustration and spinning from being hit with a missile is real, I can assure you. Because of the camera view having to keep all the cars on at once you will be boosted up if you fall too far behind. This along with all the cars having the same top speed, just different acceleration/weight/handling means that races are competitive from the start to the end.

One problem I do have with that is the sense that on harder difficulty levels that the game is scripted. There's a game mode... I don't even remember what it was called, but there's a big thing chasing you and you get points for surviving. So there's five cars in the race, first one to be caught gets 0, next gets 1 and so on. Say one car wins two rounds and has a big lead while you have none. If you're in the lead on the next round and the car that's winning overall is last and nearly out there's a good chance it will pick up the biggest booster and a weapon which hits you with remarkable accuracy. The single-player "career" is somewhat short and this artificial feeling difficulty therefore isn't that common, but the game becomes something of a drag when it's there.

Stylistically it's nothing special. There seems to be some backstory about being chased around planets by a corporation of some sort but who cares, aside from some window dressing there's not much difference between any of the tracks which all have basic layouts like the one pictured. In the ice planet races for instance some weather or differing track conditions would be nice, but I suppose that would interfere with the parity of the cars and weapons. The scale of the game also probably prohibits this, both in terms of the mechanics and the size of the game itself - you'll be done with the career in a few hours.

The real fun in this scenario I imagine would come from a four player game like the one pictured. If you have some friends round and sit playing it together then, much like the game, only one person will be left alive by the end of it. Based on several postings around the internet you'll need to have friends, since there seems to be a lot of problems with the online multiplayer. Either way, it's a fun little racing game to keep you occupied for a while. You couldn't ask for much more from it.

 

[GlassesJacketShirt]

Mass Effect: Andromeda
7/10

We shall see how this one ages. I had fun and I do think the team put a ton of content into the game, but it's definitely rough around the edges and contains several tedious moments. Something to build on if they ever get to part 2, universe has too much potential to just throw it to the wayside.


Dark Soul
8/10

Finally got past this one including the DLC. It is a flawed masterpiece alright: terrific gameplay marred by cheap tricks that occasionally work in your favor, usually not.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Vanquish - 7/10

I bought this on the endorsement of TB but was kind of disappointed. Thej gameplay was really fun, the story was OK, but there was pretty much no enemy variety and only a couple weapons felt good. The game did run great on PC aside from a bug that caused you to take more damage at higher framerates which made some fights tricky. Overall, it was a pretty good game, nothing too crazy.

 

[aleshemsky83]

BlazeRush (PS3, 2014)

...

One problem I do have with that is the sense that on harder difficulty levels that the game is scripted. There's a game mode... I don't even remember what it was called, but there's a big thing chasing you and you get points for surviving. So there's five cars in the race, first one to be caught gets 0, next gets 1 and so on. Say one car wins two rounds and has a big lead while you have none. If you're in the lead on the next round and the car that's winning overall is last and nearly out there's a good chance it will pick up the biggest booster and a weapon which hits you with remarkable accuracy. The single-player "career" is somewhat short and this artificial feeling difficulty therefore isn't that common, but the game becomes something of a drag when it's there.

This is how most of these games work. Just like Mario Kart, its likely that you will also get better items the further back you are. A legitimate strategy in mario kart is to lag behind until the final lap if you have lightning or some other really valuable item.

Vanquish - 7/10

I bought this on the endorsement of TB but was kind of disappointed. Thej gameplay was really fun, the story was OK, but there was pretty much no enemy variety and only a couple weapons felt good. The game did run great on PC aside from a bug that caused you to take more damage at higher framerates which made some fights tricky. Overall, it was a pretty good game, nothing too crazy.

This bug didn't bother me, I actually didn't notice it until it was found out online, but I still waited to see if it would get patched out, and thankfully it has been as of today.