The last few games you beat and rate them III

[Frankie Spankie]

Minit - 7.5/10

Minit is kind of a Zelda style puzzle game played in 60 second bursts. You have to explore a bit and get some new save points. As you solve puzzles and collect items, the game will remember, and you can carry on from those points in your next life. After the 60 second timer goes up, you die and start back at your last save point, of which, there are 4. The world isn't too big so the save points feel fairly spread out. I had issues where the in game time and speed is directly tied to your frame rate and there is no in game fix, which is a really bad design considering how the engine works. As a result, playing on a 144hz monitor means the game is slightly faster than double time. I found that alt-tabbing out and alt-tabbing back in kept the frame rate at the 60 the game was clearly designed for, but I shouldn't have to go through such a silly fix.

The game itself is quite fun. The world isn't that large so exploration doesn't feel overwhelming on trying to figure out where to go. There are plenty of little puzzles to solve and having a timer can add to some pressure to solve them quickly. The game took me about 80 minutes to finish on my first playthrough. There is a NG+ but I don't really have much desire to do it since I already know how to solve the game and am not one to try to speedrun games.

Overall, the game is quite enjoyable for what it is. I feel as if the price tag is a little high but definitely think it's worth picking up on a sale.

 

[Unholy Diver]

Days Gone 8.5/10

This game caught a lot of hate on the initial reviews and I just didn't see it, I ran into a couple of bugs early ( sound dropping) but it was patched and never an issue again. I thought the story was pretty good, maybe not The Last of Us/Uncharted good but it still kept my interest for the entirety of the game which I would estimate I probably put 40+ hours into it. I did a good bit of the side missions but not all, so it probably would be about 30 hrs if played straight through without the side stuff. A very solid game for me, a B+ at least

 

[John Price]

Yakuza Kiwami 2 (9/10)

Good game with compelling storyline. Only issue is dragon engine has a few flaws (they took out switching between play styles!) but more weapons and more environmental interaction is always good (bashing someone with a random sign is hilarious)

 

[heatnikki]

Counter Strike: Global Offensive
It's one of my fav games so I give it 10/10
This game is very competitive. The best part is that I can play it for free online. I created my own team through esport platform on https://dreamteam.gg/csgo/analytics and now I can take part in tournaments with pro players.

 

[Ceremony]

Rime (PS4, 2017)

Have you played Journey, Ico or BioShock Infinite? Have you played any platformer featuring even the most rudimentary puzzles? Congratulations! You have played Rime, whether you've played it or not, and need wonder no further. Rime is a puzzle platformer in which you play a small boy, haunted by periodic visions of seeing his father fall from their boat during a rough storm. There is no objective aside from the implied attempt to reach a tower somewhere in the distance, as you solve an assortment of puzzles and follow a small barking fox, your only companion.

I'm not quite sure where to start with a review of Rime. The gameplay is pretty simple. Its bold and simplistic art design combines with its youthful protagonist to make a game which is visually striking, and the gameplay reflects this. You can do the usual stuff of climbing along ledges and moving objects around to solve puzzles. The gameplay is one of the most frustrating parts of the game though, as moving along ledges and jumping to others seems to happen in spite of your controller inputs rather than because of them. Trying to get the boy to jump in the right direction too often feels like luck rather than a concerted effort.

The puzzles themselves are mostly simple, and require a considerable exploration of the different areas of the game. This isn't a chore, as each of the four distinct locations are in themselves varies and expansive, with some collectibles to look for as well. In several areas there's a need to interact with the environment in a way which makes it feel real rather than a vehicle for objectives, such as bribing animals with fruit to clear a path for you. Sections like this make the world feel fleshed out and authentic. Although progress through the areas is mostly linear, there's enough exploration required to make them feel like more than that.

Sadly, for all its visual appeal and careful level design, the premise of Rime is what ultimately lets it down. I won't spoil it (it's short - even if you struggle in areas you shouldn't take more than five hours to finish it) but although the premise of the story is sound and there's a potentially impactful twist, there's something about the game which I found lacking. Maybe it's the obvious influence of the already mentioned games and others I probably didn't pick up on, but there's something shallow about the conclusion. Each of the distinct areas I mentioned are supposed to correspond to the five stages of depression - anger, bargaining, grief, etc. - but aside from one section with infinite hallways until you find the right path, these doesn't seem connected to the gameplay in any tangible or meaningful way. There's something missing in connecting the emotional impact of the story to the gameplay or even just the presentation, and the whole package suffers as a result.

I don't have much else to say about Rime purely because there isn't much to say. It's the sort of thing I'd patronising call "nice" but I can't even manage it here. There's potential for an emotionally stirring story but... well, it is an emotionally stirring story. It just doesn't come across as such. I can't really get past that sense of disappointment.

 

[Do Make Say Think]

Counter Strike: Global Offensive
It's one of my fav games so I give it 10/10
This game is very competitive. The best part is that I can play it for free online. I created my own team through esport platform and now I can take part in tournaments with pro players.

You finished Counter-Strike?

 

[Unholy Diver]

What Remains of Edith Finch - 8/10

Free with PS+ this month, Walking simulator/Point and Click adventure, following Edith as she explores the stories of the cursed Finch family, story was good, pretty sad at times, but a good little game to kill a few hours with

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Devil May Cry 5 - 8.5/10

I just finished playing the entire series all in a couple of months time and Devil May Cry 5 is definitely the best of the series IMO. The combat feels the smoothest of the entire series. I didn't really like Nero's parts of DMC4 but his combat felt a lot more enjoyable than in 4. I still liked Dante's style a lot more but every character felt good in this one. The story's solid but I feel like you don't play these kinds of games for the story, it's all about the combat and that's where it flourishes. Definitely a must play for anyone, a must have for any DMC fan. I'm glad I ended up playing all of them leading up to this too. I got a great feel for the combat in the series. It definitely changes up a bit from game to game but I still had a pretty good feel for it going into 5 and it made the game that much more enjoyable.

 

[Ryuji Yamazaki]

Far Cry 5 - 5.0. Terrible story, horrible interruptions from main enemies in the story, way too repetitive, ridiculous falling damage, some perks are trash.

Dead Rising 4 - 7.0. Still fun, just felt like Dead Rising 3 was better. Lots of customization and all the Capcom stuff is nostalgic

 

[SeidoN]

Rage 2 - 6.5/10

+ Excellent combat
+ Good selection of weapons with cool secondary modes
+ Superpowers are hella fun with deep customization options
+ Main missions pretty varied if a little short

- Boring open world
- Very short, uninteresting story
- Characters feel bland and underdeveloped, feels like a neutered Borderlands

 

[Frankie Spankie]

She Remembered Caterpillars - 7/10

I got this from a Humble Bundle monthly. She Remembered Caterpillars is a puzzle game where you have bridges and gates that are all color coded as well as characters you control that are color coded. Characters can blend together to form other colors (ie blue+yellow =green) and you can change colors of a character later on. You can only cross a bridge if your character is the same color or at least partially the same color (so blue can cross a blue bridge but green can also cross a blue bridge to get a yellow character across.) Gates work the opposite way, you cannot cross a gate if you are the same color. The goal is to have each character you control standing on each finish point of each map. Those are not color coded so you have to figure out how to get each character there.

The game is quite challenging, especially the later levels. Oddly enough, there were some later levels that I found incredibly easy and solved them in a minute while there were others that I was completely stumped on. I'm not sure if I just got lucky or what. The game is definitely great at making you think and you have to get creative. Not know what color needs to be where to complete each level can really throw you for a loop. Some that I had a lot of trouble with, I was too focus on getting on character to what I thought would be their obvious final destination but after playing around, I figured it was not. The game is about 4 hours long, achievements are super easy to get to perfect the game once you do complete it. If you enjoy puzzle games, I'd recommend it, but if you're not a puzzle fan, just skip this one, it's not the game for you.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Return of the Obra Dinn - 9.5/10

I had an absolute blast playing this game. I finished it in one weekend, something that very rarely happens for me anymore. It took me about 9-10 hours but I just could not stop playing. You play as a detective who can travel back in time to relive somebody's death and have to put everything together, names, deaths, and killers. You progress backwards through the story and have to just use the little information you're given to come up with what happened to everyone. This requires you to listen to all dialogues, search all parts of the ship in each scene, pay attention to what each job on a ship does, etc. The game gives you all the information needed and some of it is educated guesses. There are some tiny details you have to look for such as even jewelry or the type of clothing somebody is wearing, even just their beds or rooms by referring to the map can give you enough information that you need. The story is pretty neat all the way through while you uncover what happened but the glory of this game is in the detective mode. You have to get three complete clues correct for the game to confirm you're right. Such as character A is killed in this fashion by character B (or not by another character depending on the death such as falling.) It's good to get you in the right direction but it can be abused a bit when you know you have 2 correct and just guess a third person if you know their cause of death. I'm sure it's part of the design but it feels kind of cheap.

Every time you figure something new out, it's so satisfying. You can bookmark each person on the ship and go to just the memories they're involved in to try to track down who they are or what happened to them. There are even times you will follow the path of one person to try to find their identity and you inadvertently find somebody else's. There are so many tiny details to find that anything you can confirm is like a pot of gold and you can branch out from there to hopefully confirm a few other things. The game is definitely one of the best puzzle games I've ever played. Highly recommended, it's a must play as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Osprey]

Return of the Obra Dinn - 9.5/10

I had an absolute blast playing this game. I finished it in one weekend, something that very rarely happens for me anymore. It took me about 9-10 hours but I just could not stop playing. You play as a detective who can travel back in time to relive somebody's death and have to put everything together, names, deaths, and killers. You progress backwards through the story and have to just use the little information you're given to come up with what happened to everyone. This requires you to listen to all dialogues, search all parts of the ship in each scene, pay attention to what each job on a ship does, etc. The game gives you all the information needed and some of it is educated guesses. There are some tiny details you have to look for such as even jewelry or the type of clothing somebody is wearing, even just their beds or rooms by referring to the map can give you enough information that you need. The story is pretty neat all the way through while you uncover what happened but the glory of this game is in the detective mode. You have to get three complete clues correct for the game to confirm you're right. Such as character A is killed in this fashion by character B (or not by another character depending on the death such as falling.) It's good to get you in the right direction but it can be abused a bit when you know you have 2 correct and just guess a third person if you know their cause of death. I'm sure it's part of the design but it feels kind of cheap.

Every time you figure something new out, it's so satisfying. You can bookmark each person on the ship and go to just the memories they're involved in to try to track down who they are or what happened to them. There are even times you will follow the path of one person to try to find their identity and you inadvertently find somebody else's. There are so many tiny details to find that anything you can confirm is like a pot of gold and you can branch out from there to hopefully confirm a few other things. The game is definitely one of the best puzzle games I've ever played. Highly recommended, it's a must play as far as I'm concerned.

I played it around Christmas and echo your thoughts. It's the only game that I've ever played to actually make me feel like a detective. Sherlock Holmes adventure games are fun but aren't the same because they don't require any actual deduction and can feel rather linear. I loved how, in 'Obra-Dinn', you eventually have freedom to roam all over the ship and tackle the deaths in whatever order you want. Also, I loved that the game is essentially a huge game of Clue, which is probably my favorite board game. I'm already looking forward to eventually playing it again.

 

[Ceremony]

​

Child of Light (PS4, 2014)

The first non-Pokemon RPG I ever played was the Game Boy Colour version of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. It's pretty much a straight-forward adaptation of the book, with progress through the story made by working through the castle/forest/wherever else, fighting monsters that are there and levelling up as you go. I loved it. I completed it loads of times. You could pick the Wizard Cards you get from Chocolate Frogs at the end of the game, so there was an incentive to play lots of times to try and fill your collection. I don't think I ever did. I'm also pretty sure my save file is still playable in the game, so I could always check.

As I was thinking about how to write about Child of Light I remembered the satisfaction I got from that Harry Potter game, and realised how strange it is that the genre hasn't stuck with me at all as I carried on playing games. There's something simplistic and straight-forward about that type of RPG which I can see the appeal of. It's linear, it's balanced well and it's in a setting I would have found engaging at the time.

Child of Light is in many ways very similar. You are Aurora, daughter of the King (or something) of Austria. Aurora goes to sleep and stays asleep, daddy is heartbroken and withdraws from life. Aurora has to fight through a sequence of monsters and a mysterious sequence of locations to fix everything. Along the way you pick up other characters to add to your party, and you all level up as you defeat monsters. Each party member has different abilities, and there is an assortment of elemental factors that come into play.

In all honesty, I can't tell you too much about the story. Aside from some narration at the start and end, all the dialogue is in on-screen text. This isn't a problem. The problem is that it all rhymes. All of it. Except one character who hesitates before finishing a sentence with a word which doesn't rhyme. Who is then corrected. So, naturally, I quickly stopped paying attention.

We move on to gameplay then, and it's a mixed bag. There's a twist on the turn-based combat you would expect in a game like this. There's a bar on the bottom of the screen during battles which combatants progress along as they're waiting for their turn. Certain attacks can Interrupt characters, knocking them back. There's also the usual array of buffs and debuffs - improving defence/attack, speeding people up/slowing them down. It's easy enough in theory, but it gets very frustrating when the full array of two allies/three enemies is on the go. Enemies seem to get buffs set quicker than you and more easily. The menu for choosing your action is unintuitive and feels like it was designed for a different game altogether. Aurora has a firefly (I can't spell his name, let's call him Iggy) follow her about and in the open world you use him for lighting areas up when you're moving through them. In battle you can move him to slow down enemies or heal your guys, and this is something else to keep track of that ends up being a distraction.

The worst part about combat is the way enemies are displayed and encounters. In the 2D overworld you'll have enemies floating around, and you can choose whether or not to engage with them. Some have obvious elemental qualities - they'll be on fire or made of ice - so before you go into battle you'll set your party up accordingly. Then in the battle you'll have the enemy you engaged with plus two others that are different, which you're now going to take an age to beat because of your set-up. This is pretty much a constant problem through the game.

In addition, there's no bestiary or list of enemies and their attributes. Fire and water enemies are easy to spot, there are others that are white, some are black, some are brown, some are no colour in particular. I'm not expecting to be given details of every creature I encounter before I fight them, but some way of keeping track of and differentiating them would be ideal. It's such a glaring oversight it honestly makes me feel like the game's not finished.

The system for changing your attributes isn't very clear either. Throughout the game you can collect an assortment of stones, or Oculi, which you can apply to characters to improve their various attributes. The system for doing this is barely explained, and the result is what should be a tactical, thorough aspect of the game is better off ignored, and battles brute forced. Despite this, I was playing on the easier difficulty and found the combat a struggle at times, particularly boss fights.

It's a shame there's so much to criticise about the core gameplay and the writing, because the game looks fantastic. The 2D hand-drawn background aesthetic is done perfectly. The game's different areas feel distinct, large and well-crafted. They really feel like a lot of care and attention went into their creation. Even though I was blasting through them in a largely functional manner it was a very pleasurable game to look at, which made it a bit easier.

Although RPGs haven't really maintained my interest over the years the way my first one did, I feel as if this game had a chance. Sadly, there are too many niggling issues that over-ride its strengths.

 

[Ceremony]

​

Hitman GO: Definitive Edition (PS4, 2016)


Hitman GO is, on the face of it, a strange idea. A third person stealth shooter where you play an assassin doesn't sound like something that could translate well to a top-down mobile game where your character moves along a series of lines on the ground, hiding from or killing enemies and interacting with the environment in certain locations in order to reach a target. But, it does.

The gameplay is pretty simple, and as described there. You move around, avoiding the different types of enemies or killing them if you want. The levels get more complex as you progress. More challenging enemies and new gameplay elements such as weapons and disguises are introduced. While every level is easy enough to complete, there are two additional optional objectives for you to aim for - the usual Hitman briefcase pick-up, plus something related to kill count or total number of turns.

What else is there to say? It's fun. The board game/model aesthetic is fantastic. I want all my favourite games turned into these levels. Imagine a BioShock or a Red Dead Redemption version. The levels are all designed pretty well too, although I did have one problem. In cases where enemies move along preset paths, sometimes the only way to move them out of the way is to go back and forth for a bit until they're where you need them to be. I suppose this reflects the waiting you might get in a typical Hitman or other stealth game as enemies move around, but in this format it feels cheap and clunky.

Honestly, I just want a BioShock version of this and I want all the levels as models so I can look at and play with them. Great idea, great puzzles, great fun. It works on console as well as mobile, so fire in.

 

[Unholy Diver]

Golf Story - 9/10

A golf based RPG for the Switch, sounded kind of strange initially but it really works, this is a fun little game where you fight your battles not with a sword and shield but a putter and pitching wedge, fairly simple yet also challenging at times, overall a very enjoyable game

 

[Shareefruck]

Super Meat Boy - 1.5 (Neutral)

Finished the main game for the first time. Turns out exhaustively playing through Celeste really lowers the difficulty for this game-- didn't really start to get tough until the fourth chapter, and ended up finishing it in about four hours. It's a fun game, although there are a few minor things that I really disliked as well, and it's not a fraction as good or as perfectly executed/designed as Celeste is.

The sound design is good, the music is so-so, it uses Flash-style animation about as well as it can but that art style in general has always looked inherently cheap and trashy to my eyes (it's unfortunate that the sequel looks like the same kind of thing). The levels are fun and satisfying to speed through for the most part, but the controls are a bit too floaty for the precision that's demanded of you (felt like I was constantly sliding off things and even after getting pretty good at it, completing the simplest jumps never felt totally reliable).

The section of the game that I HATED most was the boss of Chapter 4-- Just pure mindless memorization that you can't really react to, and lacking the obvious animation queues that should at least tip you off on what's about to happen next (they technically exist, but the animations are too instantaneous for it to have any use). It wasn't hard, it was just stupid and terribly designed.



The supposed charm and humor of the cut scenes...... eghh... Didn't do much for me-- a lot of dumb slapstick.

Decent game overall that mechanics-wise is otherwise right up my alley.

Indie Games:
1. Celeste - 5.0 (Masterpiece)
2. Inside - 5.0 (Masterpiece)
3. Into the Breach - 4.5 (Brilliant)
4. Hollow Knight - 3.5 (Great)
5. Journey - 3.0 (Very Good)
6. Limbo - 2.5 (Good)
7. The Messenger - 2.5 (Good)
---
8. Undertale - 2.0 (Positive)
9. Hyper Light Drifter - 2.0 (Positive)
10. Sonic Mania - 2.0 (Positive)
11. Shovel Knight - 2.0 (Positive)
12. FTL - 1.5 or 2.0 (Neutral/Positive)
13. Cuphead - 1.5 (Neutral)
14. Super Meat Boy - 1.5 (Neutral)
15. Towerfall Ascension - 1.5 (Neutral)
16. Baba is You - 1.5 (Neutral)
17. Axiom Verge - 1.5 (Neutral)
---
18. Dead Cells - 1.0 (Negative)
19. Gris - 1.0 (Negative)
20. Fez - 0.5 (Bad)
21. Doki Doki Literature Club - 0.0 (Terrible)
22. The Stanley Parable - 0.0 (Terrible)

 

[Do Make Say Think]

Sekiro

7/10

Good fun but hardly what I'd consider special

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Mutant Year Zero: Road To Eden - 8/10

Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden is an RPG with combat pretty much exactly like the XCOM series. The tactics game play is a ton of fun, you can even sneak around with quiet weapons to take out enemies walking around by themselves which is a great addition compared to the XCOM games. The armor usually has some fun appearances like a top hat or an old Jofa hockey helmet. You can also find some weapons with some fun perks around the world as well. The world itself is actually really well done. It looks like an apocalypse with a lot of vegetation growing around the world and dilapidated buildings. You control the characters just using WASD as you move around and can stealth by shutting off your flashlight to get closer to enemies for an ambush. Again, the tactics is top notch and if you like the XCOM games, you'll like this one. I explored around a lot in between fights for items and didn't really run into too much down time between fights so it doesn't feel too slow. The fun part was circling a group of enemies and finding the best approach to take.

I only have a couple of complaints. One, for an RPG, there's not much story. The ending was well done IMO but the story progressing through the game was barely there. It really felt like they were just giving you random reasons to go to each point for the game's progression. Being an RPG, it loses some points in that regard. The only other problem I really had was the Twitch Shot ability didn't seem to work half the time. Twitch Shot is an ability you can unlock for some characters that will allow you to shoot twice at an enemy with a penalty to accuracy. Often times, my character would only shoot once. At first, I thought it may have been a bug in animation only showing one shot but it only dealt damage for one shot and then the following turn, I could see in my gun's magazine that I only took one shot. It was really annoying and often times when using it, was basically just a penalty to your accuracy. You still get the cooldown for the ability too.

Overall, I really enjoyed the game. It took me about 13 hours to beat on normal difficulty and it felt like the appropriate amount of time for a game like this. I definitely recommend it, especially for anyone who's a fan of the XCOM games.

 

[mmalady]

far cry new dawn.....liked it better than far cry 5....same elements...short and sweet....wrapped up nicely...8/10

 

[Ryuji Yamazaki]

far cry new dawn.....liked it better than far cry 5....same elements...short and sweet....wrapped up nicely...8/10

Did it have anything different? I recently played Far Cry 5 and thought it was ok, but still had fun with it.

 

[mmalady]

Did it have anything different? I recently played Far Cry 5 and thought it was ok, but still had fun with it.

it added some rpg mechanics..homebase/weapons crafting/upgrades etc, that FC 5 didn't have...made for a more satisfying player progression/less grind..the outposts are repeatable...more interesting side missions...companions can revive you...and you meet up with old friends...all wrapped up in a logical, timely,satisfying way...give it a go

 

[Ryuji Yamazaki]

it added some rpg mechanics..homebase/weapons crafting/upgrades etc, that FC 5 didn't have...made for a more satisfying player progression/less grind..the outposts are repeatable...more interesting side missions...companions can revive you...and you meet up with old friends...all wrapped up in a logical, timely,satisfying way...give it a go

Thanks, I'll wait for it to go on sale again and pick it up.

 

[SeidoN]

I liked FC5 but New Dawn runs horribly on my PC. I might revisit it down the line

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Gato Robot - 7/10

Gato Roboto is a platformer with some metroidvania elements. You actually play a cat in a mech suit who is on a mission to help his master investigate a call from an alien planet. The abilities are pretty straight forward and you need to unlock them to progress through certain sections. The mechanics work great, the boss battles are OK, platforming is good, etc. Overall, fairly solid game. Not great, but still good. If you think the aesthetic is nice and you want a short action game, go ahead and pick this one up.