The last few games you beat and rate them III

[ProstheticConscience]

Mad Max

Basically it's Grand Theft Auto: Mad Max Universe.

And it's ****ing awesome.

 

[Ceremony]

Dead Space 2 (PS3, 2011)

Many moons ago when I posted about Dead Space I remarked on how hard it was to find an HF-suitable image representing a game which is about defending yourself against deadly intestine-ripping aliens by cutting their limbs off. I found the above image in a lot less time, and find it more fitting for Dead Space 2 than anything else I could have attempted to find.

You are Isaac Clarke, a man who wakes up in a mental institute of some sort which is being ransacked by very familiar looking pointy and screamy things while a bossy woman in your ear tells you where to go. The rest of the game is a panicked rush through a fallen civilisation on one of the moons of Saturn as you kill lots of these aliens. As much as I attempt to focus on the story and the characterisation and any overarching themes when I write about games in here, I can't on this occasion. Because after playing the game through three separate times, I haven't the faintest ****ing idea what any of it was supposed to be. The first game centred around the discovery of an 'artefact,' The Marker, on a planet which was found by a ship sent out to break open planets for mineral resources to take back to Earth. As an aside, I watched Alien for the first time in a long time the other night and quite enjoyed it. No idea why I'm bringing it up here actually, sorry for that.

Anyhoo, that was the point of the first game, coupled with Isaac trying to find out what happened to his girlfriend who was on the ship. Easy. Now though... I honestly don't know. Turns out there's a church of some sort centred around The Marker and worship of it. It seems that being turned into a Necromorph is in some way integral to The Marker, lots of them converge on it at the end to do... something. And you crawl into a CAT scanner of some sort which puts a big needle into your eye because your brain contains stuff that activates The Marker. It seems like this end-point is something Isaac tries to do, he chases/is led on by someone else who was in the facility with him at the start for the same reason who keeps telling him about these steps he has to go through, but... I still don't know why.

On characterisation, oh boy, it's terrible. Isaac was mute in the first game. Now he talks and the dialogue is awful. "That sounds like a really bad idea." "Stick around, I'm full of bad ideas." Oh, yes, really. Better yet is the slightly English woman he ends up befriending who replaces the first bossy voice in his ear. She gets stabbed in the eye by the other guy he's following. She is then, seconds later, able to knock the guy out with a bar and yell "You owe me an eye you *******!" at Isaac. No blood coming out her eye socket by the way and she covers it with a single plaster afterwards. Remarkable. Given the amount of gore in the game I'm surprising even myself at how annoyed I am by the apparent lack of realism in this regard but it doesn't help make the characters any more believable on a human level. As Isaac goes through the game he has various visions of his dead girlfriend from the first game but I just can't get any emotional resonance from him at any point. I think the best single word I could use to describe this game is 'procedural,' in that everything is very linear and straight-forward and as a result there's this underlying sense that there will always be a resolution, that most of what you see/do is inconsequential.

The setting of the game itself, well, the first game was on a single ship which looked like it was designed by a blind man with some pipes. The first half of 2 largely takes place in a residential area, most of which seems to feature children's rooms and educational facilities. When going through these sections I got a very strong BioShock 2 vibe. The game tries very hard to show a fallen civilisation. While it will never compare to even the not-as-good-as-the-first-game BioShock 2 (and not with BioShock Infinite's Burial at Sea DLC which features a school), something just rings hollow here. I think in what is supposed to be a horror game there is too much focus on action. This holds true from what I remember of the first game, in that any sense of continuing unsettledness or dread can't build up because you're too busy killing loads of aliens in increasingly gruesome and effective ways. The claustrophobic surround of the first game was ideal for this sort of thing, and in being opened up in the second, it just doesn't work. I don't hold out much hope for 3 which I've read is worse for that.

On that note about effective ways of killing aliens, there isn't really even any need for that. The Plasma Cutter, your starting weapon, is the best. Others might be more fun, but especially on the harder difficulties it's efficiency you want. I remember a lot more boss fights in the first game, those are mostly gone. I remember more puzzle and physics-related elements with the kinesis function, those are lacking too. Zero-gravity and in-space sections, they're ironically neutered somewhat in being able to move above freely rather in straight lines, meaning there's no real strategy or thought required for anything. Not even counting that in open-space areas where you have a finite oxygen supply that there are refill stations within fifty yards' reach at all times. Even as I write this now I'm slightly amazed that they could make what is effectively the same game as before, in a more expansive setting, with less features and less variety in the gameplay. It's a really damning failure.

About the only positive I can take away is the Hardcore mode. This offers something tangible to the survival horror genre, allowing only three save points per playthrough, sending you back to your last save point when you die. The threat of dying is much more real and tense when you know you'll have to spend another two hours making progress. That mode is really the only positive I can take away from this game. Aside from a mixture of confusion and disappointment, there's not much else to go with that.

 

[SniperHF]

On that note about effective ways of killing aliens, there isn't really even any need for that. The Plasma Cutter, your starting weapon, is the best. Others might be more fun, but especially on the harder difficulties it's efficiency you want.

Yeah, the old flavor choice. You mentioned Bioshock, this was actually one of my complaints about BS as well. Infinite more so than 1&2. But they still did it a lot better than Dead Space with the different types of ammunition and various big daddy types.

 

[Blitzkrug]

I think i only used the other weapons in Dead Space 1 and 2 just for the achievements. The only other one i leaned on was the line launcher to deal with those ****ing stalker things that charge you.

As for stuff i beat;

Quantum Break:

Y'know, for a game that was hyped to high hell for having a "innovative and engrossing" story, i found it to be a heap of trash. The story revolves around Jack Joyce, a normal dude who helps his buddy Paul activate this time travelling experiment. It goes arwy, both guys get powers and Paul goes bad. Due to said experiment, the very fabric of time begins to fracture, meaning Jack has to do some **** to prevent time from ending.

For those curious, there's a TV show that runs alongside the game that focuses on another set of characters. And the decisions you make in game effect that. The decisions come at the end of each act (game split into 5) where you take control of Paul and make a call that either makes the situation harder for Jack or Paul himself.

And here's where i have a serious problem with the storytelling. It's convoluted for the sake of Remedy going "look at how serious and complex our storytelling is! See? we even have a TV show! (which sucks ass btw.) Like, why would i playing as Paul in those situations pick a thing to undermine my own goals? It caused some serious cognitive dissonance with me. Why does the TV show shoehorned into each act end up being almost completely irrelevant in the end? Why is there multiple versions of the same character in time despite time not working like that according to the game? Why did this game get 9's?

Gameplay wise it's ok. Uncharted like cover system (except you snap to the cover automatically), neat gimmick with the time powers. It's not a horrid game by any means, but it sure as hell isn't a 9 out of 10.

final score: 7/10

 

[Ceremony]

Another thing I had meant to mention about Dead Space 2 - there's a new mechanic in it where you can shoot out windows, sucking any Necromorphs in the area out into space and you (potentially) out with them unless you shoot a switch closing the door. Except it's largely the same every time. You go to the opposite end of the room, shoot the window, then shoot the switch. And I say "every time," there's about four of them total in the game. It feels like something that was intended to be new and add variety to the gameplay but got restrained and sanitised as much as possible. I don't know what else they could have done with it, but it still feels lacking somehow.

 

[The Gongshow]

Uncharted 4 : 9/10

 

[Commander Clueless]

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (PS4 - Remastered)

The one I never played on PS3, I finally got around to playing on PS4 before I dive into Uncharted 4.


Overall, a classic Uncharted game that doesn't deviate too much from the formula, but is great in it's own right. Beautiful, fun, over-the-top adventure with some good puzzles.

The only flaws the game really has are in its platforming, which has been roughly the same since the first one: sometimes Drake just seems to have a mind of his own. This usually isn't too big a problem unless you're in a sequence where time is of the essence. There is also the problem of the "invisible walls" in the form of instant death for jumping somewhere it looks like you can go, but can't. Also, there was one sequence near the end that involved a hallucination, and the visual effects gave me a splitting headache.

Maybe a personal thing, but I also don't like that opponents shoot you while you are tangled in fisticuffs with their buddies...like they just don't care. Additionally, I personally found the final boss fight a little underwhelming.

Fairly minor gripes I suppose, but enough for me to dock a point. Other than that, fantastic overall game that falls a bit short of #2.

9/10

 

[GlassesJacketShirt]

Continuing my hunt for older last generation games, notably forgotten ones, my adventure drops me into the world of Binary Domain (which I got for free during an odd Sega promotion on Steam).

Binary Domain
Consoles: Xbox 360, PS3, PC
Genre: Third-person Shooter, Cyberpunk

My first impression of this Japanese TPS was that it was trying to be Gears of War with robots; after I finished playing the first thirty minutes or so, I realized the game had more in common with another Sega cover based gunner, Vanquish (a very short, very awesome game). Its mechanics are not as flashy as Vanquish's, but the presentation and the enemy variants give this a similar feel.

The gun play seems very basic at first: take cover, shoot, rinse, repeat. While this formula stays more or less the same throughout (sprinkled with some cool on rails bits here or there), the flavor of its shooting comes from the enemies taking all dat hot lead. The game has you fighting almost exclusively against a legion of Japanese androids, some with basic guns you can pick up as well, others with more sophisticated fighting methods. As you drill your enemies with bullets, armor plates disintegrate to reveal their skeletal insides, providing you with some of the best visual feedback ever in a shooter. Causing a decapitation without doing any more damage to the opponent makes their sensors go haywire, making them turn on your foes. Shooting out their legs makes them crawl around with a pistol, allowing you to melee them in a satisfying manner with the butt end of your gun. The detail put into this robotic destruction is a perfect example of graphics and gameplay working hand in hand to enhance what could have ended up a being painfully generic shooter. Having a squad with you at all times helps liven up these encounters as well, bringing me over to my next point.

One mechanic the game tried to innovate with was squad morale. Help your squad mates and reply in kind during conversations, and you develop a better rapport with them. The higher the trust level, the more likely they are to do whatever you tell them to do. Combined with this feature is the ability to use a microphone to talk to your squaddies with the game providing a vocabulary listing for every word the AI recognizes. It's half-baked due to the so-so squad commands that come in the first place, meaning these features are more useful for trying to get the best possible endgame (note: try and get Charlie, Bo and Rachel on your side as quickly as possible).

Story and characters ended up being surprisingly engrossing; I say surprisingly because the first chapter did not give the greatest impression of the game's overall presentation. Thankfully, Binary Domain does not take long to address this issue. You "lead the way" as Daniel Marshall, a loud talking American with an eye for danger, broads and robot hatin'; as the story moves forward Dan develops new positions on these matters, but explaining how and why would be spoiler territory.

This band of commandos who follow you into battle includes old friend Bo, MI6 hard ass Charlie and his partner/explosives expert Rachel, the (ever so foxy) Chinese sniper Faye and my personal favorite Cain, the French combat android with a witty sense of humor and an itchy trigger finger. Probably the best robotic squaddie since HK 47 from KOTORs 1 and 2. Outside of Cain, the other characters need a bit of feeling out process before they connect, mirroring Dan's own situation in a way, but they eventually turn out to be rather likeable. Some of the character related issues are rooted in its occasionally wonky script and renditions; it never becomes a huge problem, and I did come to appreciate my cohorts by the end of it all.

As for the plot, it's essentially one long infiltration mission gone wrong. Word on the street is that Amada, head of the self named Amada Corporation, has been working on creating lifelike androids who have even fooled themselves into believing they are real people. Since this is considered a violation of a globally signed treaty, several nations grouped together to form an insertion squad into Tokyo to apprehend the possible guilty party......and it gets loud. Squad leader Charlie likes to point out that only he seems to have understood the covert nature of the assignment, and indeed the game is more or less a non-stop action packed ride, bolstered by an internationally driven story involving Blade Runner style Replicants, global warming, corporate warfare and an isolationist Japan. The robopocalpytic/cyberpunk storyline feels very Japanese anime-like, even more so than Vanquish did, which I am all for. Working with the story is the excellent attention to detail put into the environments of a futuristic Tokyo, whether it be the beaten slums of a distant past, the food factory highlighting the reality of Japan's situation, or the shiny skyline of the city's upper echelon.

This is one of those games where I considered stopping about fifteen minutes in (since I got it for free anyway), but I am glad I kept at it. Out of all the recent "forgotten" games I've played this is the one that definitely deserved more attention than it received on release. It sort of reminded me of Alpha Protocol a little in the sense that it tried some new ideas without being able to fully flesh everything out, but whereas Alpha Protocol had better executed concepts mired by inconsistent gameplay, Binary Domain's shooting felt very satisfying and held up throughout the campaign. The lack of a co-op option, likely due to the squad mechanics, likely hurt its reception as the set up could have been perfect for a co-op adventure. Also, I did not play the multiplayer due to a general lack of players (makes me wonder if development time could have been better suited towards using all resources on the campaign), so I would not look at this game with online play ambitions.

Alas, my final rating is a solid 7/10 with a high recommendation for those who enjoy cover shooters or japanese cyberpunk worlds. I understand how this game got lost in the forest due to bad NA marketing and some so-so features, yet I did walk away from this game thinking I could go for another round of this series (the game's post credits scene does create a plausible setup for a co-op featured sequel). Binary Domain is something of a stereotypical hidden gem, and like most diamonds in the rough I came away wanting more.

Pros:
-Solid shooting and cover mechanics
-Excellent enemy variety/destruction
-Good story and characters
-Top tier world-building
-Next to no filler

Cons:
-Dead multiplayer, could have used co-op
-Occasional lack of polish
-Half-implemented ideas

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

I just 100% completed Red Dead Redemption for the PS3 for the second time.

9/10

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Jump Jet Rex - 7/10

Jump Jet Rex is essentially a speedrunning platformer. Your focus is to complete each level as quickly as possible and are rewarded for quick times and not dying. There are tricks to move faster in every direction but you really have to remember the level layout to get bonus stars. The controls are very responsive and gameplay is great. They had bosses that felt like they were tacked on though and really tedious. Really took a lot of the fun out of the game. Overall, it was a pretty good game. I recommend it if you're into speed running for sure.

Doom (2016) - 8.5/10

The new Doom was great, it was surprisingly what we all wanted with a new Doom game. Gameplay was fast and intense while being fair. Every kill felt so satisfying and the weapon mods were really fun to use. It was like nostalgia just running around jumping from platform to platform while you turn to fire at some demon and keep going without breaking stride. My only complaints about the game was the multiplayer wasn't that good and the story was pretty much non-existent. I never expected much of a story from Doom but Wolfenstein The New Order changed my expectations. The multiplayer felt too much like Halo too, it was too clear that it was made by a different development team.

 

[BaileyMacTavish]

Postal 2 Complete
8/10

Despite it's shoddy shooting, I still found a lot of fun to be had with this game just to orchestrate elaborate to ways "go postal" and wreak havoc on the townsfolk when I'm not focusing on the story of the game. And the missions in this game seem mundane, but get absolutely absurd. It doesn't get old to me. The game SHOULD be played in Insane-o difficulty as all civies will have weapons to defend themselves, making going postal more fun and rewarding.

Currently playing through Paradise Lost and I am having a blast with that as well.

 

[Ceremony]

Dead Space 3 (PS3, 2013)

As I sit down to write down what I thought of Dead Space 3 it occurs to me that I don't actually know where to begin. This is partly down to my 'finishing' it several weeks ago and subsequently having to fit in finishing the trophies around an absurd and probably illegal work schedule, but it's also partly down to not even being sure of what I think about the game anymore. I finished my thoughts on Dead Space 2 with a comment that I had no idea what was going on, that it missed boss fights, it missed puzzles and that the concept of survival horror was somewhat lost on me. Well, Dead Space 3 challenges all of those. The story begins with a two minute recap explaining everything that happened in the previous two games. Clearly, this time. There's lots of bossfights, including one which as far as I can remember is basically a copy of the last one from the first game. There's a few things which probably qualify as puzzles that can be done through blind luck. There's also no sense of survival horror at all. No darkness, no frights, no scares. Some feeble attempts at them, but... nope.

You are Isaac Clarke, who's fought off two Marker attempts to enslave humanity. Or something. After the second one you got a nice new girlfriend who looks and sounds remarkably like the Lara Croft reboot but we gloss over that. Despite saving humanity together it didn't last. Isaac however gets woken up by her new boyfriend breaking down his door and telling him Ellie's off... somewhere. And needs him. So you go with this guy and the scarred black man into space where you meet a fat white southern man and a black woman with a shaved head and about six different accents who're all investigating this signal the Markers put out which has been traced to this big planet covered in ice. Even though it's a three year old game I don't want to ruin the story or anything for you, so I'll discuss the details outside that.

I've discovered why the previous Dead Spaces were horror rather than action games. Nobody involved in them can write dialogue for ****. Or do characterisation. Isaac was at his most interesting in the first game when he was mute and didn't have a face. In DS3, they use up all the good stuff on him and you're left with cliches and lunacy for the rest of them. I know I thought that the conclusion of a series based around some alien species trying to eradicate humanity would be to include a love triangle between you, the angriest man alive and the dumbest, shallowest woman alive. Ellie's new boyfriend takes every opportunity to be jealous. Ellie takes every opportunity to be utterly clueless to everything, even after he snaps and forces you to kill him. "It was always about the mission, I thought he understood that." What a relationship they must have had. Another thing about the dialogue and stuff, I played with the subtitles on and they look like they were done by someone with a very poor grasp of English. Lots of weird punctuation and at times just different from what was said. Very sloppy.

Elsewhere, gameplay, well, it's the same gameplay we've had in the two previous games. The major difference this time is the weapon and resource crafting, allowing you to make weapons and ammo/health packs etc. through resources you find in game. It's alright in the sense that it addes another element of strategy to your playthrough, but it also takes away from it since you no longer need to carry different kinds of ammo for different weapons, and you're pretty much guaranteed to be able to make something if you need it because there's resources everywhere. Maybe this is a byproduct of trying to appeal to as broad a market as possible with the switch to an action setting, but even still it doesn't actually benefit the experience any. It just makes it a straight up shootout between you and anything that moves.

I've not got much else to say, which surprises me. It's quite long, it's much longer than the previous game and even excepting the optional co-op missions it's a lot of content here. The only thing I'd say is that any attempt at uniqueness of a lasting legacy that could have been created through the two first games has been thrown out the window, and I'm not entirely certain it was for the best in any measurable capacity.

 

[Blitzkrug]

I got like an hour into DS3 before i stopped playing. Pile of junk compared to the first two games.

 

[Ceremony]

Continuing my hunt for older last generation games, notably forgotten ones, my adventure drops me into the world of Binary Domain (which I got for free during an odd Sega promotion on Steam).

Binary Domain
Consoles: Xbox 360, PS3, PC
Genre: Third-person Shooter, Cyberpunk

This looks like it's right up my alley. And after looking it up I see it was included in US PS+, not the EU one. Brilliant.

 

[ghosted plover]

Tales from the Borderlands

Pretty damn good. Took me a few starts to get into it but was soon doing the lazy gaming thing like a pro. Loved the credit sequences, music, often hilarious dialogue. Went through a second time straight away and found some decent changes when making different choices, thought not ground breaking. Something like an 86/100 in my book.

 

[blue425]

I got like an hour into DS3 before i stopped playing. Pile of junk compared to the first two games.

I dug the 1st one until I left the space station and then I lost all interest.

 

[Ceremony]

Guacamelee! (PS3, 2013)

Guacamelee! is a game about a Mexican (obviously) chap called Juan who has to save his girlfriend from an undead bullfighter who's trying to merge the worlds of the dead and the living to rule them together. He does this by discovering he's an extremely capable luchador.

Now that the plot's out of the way, it's a pretty standard dungeon crawler with lots of enemies thrown at you and increasingly satisfying combos used to beat them. I don't have anything much to say or much else that needs to be said besides that. There's platforming too of course and some dimension changing stuff to make ledges and obstacles appear and disappear at will. These sections end up being a test of reflexes rather than thinking most of the time though, but it's still an enjoyable element of the game.

Gameplay which is relatively straightforward aside the only other thing of note which I think deserves a mention is what I'll lazily throw under the umbrella term of the "art." There's references to other games and parts of popular culture which not only makes the game itself a more fun experience but gives the impression that the same held true for the people making it. The blend of Mexicana with English-speaking western culture of the time is done well, with the game having things like Mexican wrestling advert posters based around Mario and Zelda games. In fact there's even a large enemy you destroy in the manner of Bowser, running away for it then jumping on the conveniently located switch to lower the bridge he's standing on. My own personal favourite reference is the one to Journey:

Although the corpse is a bit much. Overall the game's a bit short (hey! there's DLC!) and I think the two player thing could make things more interesting, but it's a fun thing to play.

 

[Ceremony]

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon (PS3, 2013)

When playing Far Cry 3, did you wish that it was more like every 80s action film you've ever seen combined with Duke Nukem and including huge Godzilla like things seen through a colour tint reminiscent of Red Dead Redemption's loading screens, or the T-800 when he's had one too many shandies? Did you wish it was over in five hours? Then this is the game for you!

Far Cry 3 was probably something of a pinnacle for sandbox games in the last generation. Everything you could want from one was included in that game. So here's a shorter version with some funny nostalgia-driven dialogue and content. That's it, pretty much. Except it's short. Really short. There's like five story missions. I finished everything in five and three quarter hours. It's great fun once you get the hang of the weapons, but it's remarkable how something inspired by something so comparatively deep can be so brief. And I can't criticise the colours enough - you control someone who's part robot, this manifests itself in a version of the Matrix with the RGB settings messed up. It's an amusing way of killing a few nights if you have a life unlike me and can't batter it out in one sitting, but I get the feeling it will be quite forgettable.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

edit - wrong topic

 

[GlassesJacketShirt]

This looks like it's right up my alley. And after looking it up I see it was included in US PS+, not the EU one. Brilliant.

Ah, that's too bad. I actually played through it a second time after completing my little review in order to get the best possible resolution (on a higher difficulty, of course), and I must say I might have enjoyed the game even more than the first time around. Shooting the robots did not get old for me, and I really appreciate the game's lack of excess fat. With one little exception later in the game the pacing is otherwise a real strong point.

 

[Nemesis Prime]

Max Payne 3 - 8/10

 

[Commander Clueless]

Punch Club (PC) 7/10

Picked it up during the Steam summer sale for $2.75 CAD. Hard to complain much at that price, but I'll do my darndest!

Pretty charming little time waster management game, for those who like them. The "superhero" sub-plot was particularly interesting for a ninja turtles fan as a kid.


My major, MAJOR gripe is with the aggressive stat degradation. Every day, your stats take a huge hit. While not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, it makes you feel like progress is tedious.

The story was mildly interesting and even humourous, but the ending was very abrupt.


Still, worth a play through if you like games you can play while doing something else.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Couple games that I didn't even bother finishing because they're so bad it's not worth my time:

Mighty No 9 - What a bust this game was. I don't get why it got delayed as much as it did. It is seriously the most average platformer I've ever played. There are no redeeming qualities about the game at all..

Rock n Roll Defense - Thought this would be a fun tower defense game, it's just bad. I tried every tower combination and I wasn't even able to beat the first level... Game just has terrible balancing for towers.

 

[Ceremony]

Ah, that's too bad. I actually played through it a second time after completing my little review in order to get the best possible resolution (on a higher difficulty, of course), and I must say I might have enjoyed the game even more than the first time around. Shooting the robots did not get old for me, and I really appreciate the game's lack of excess fat. With one little exception later in the game the pacing is otherwise a real strong point.

It's on sale in the EU PSN now so expect my words on it in about two and a half years.

Hotline Miami (PS3, 2012)

Hotline Miami is a 2D top-down shooter in which you go to a building, put on an animal mask and kill anyone inside the building. You go through an assortment of these buildings at the behest of seemingly unrelated phonecalls to start each level.

The details aren't really necessary. You kill Russians who all appear to be dressed like Miami Vice extras. Occasionally you kill large black men in robes who you need to shoot. Every now and then you kill police instead.

There's a range of guns and melee weapons to kill people with. At first, the game is hard. Really hard. Obnoxiously hard. Enemies see you as soon as you enter their room and can shoot you instantly. Even when you've got the hang of the game you'll still struggle here, even timing your own melee swings right is really difficult. There's a targeting mechanic but it's only good for killing one or two enemies from range if you need (and can afford) to pop out from behind a barrier to aim solely at them.

Really, the game is quite simple both in its gameplay and its overall point. It's straightforward and easy to pick up, being short enough that enough progress happens to create an illusion of competence at it in your mind which prevents it from being too frustrating. I would have some comment about the story (which seems to be based around some militia-esque conspiracy to destroy Russian/American alliances in the late 80s) but it occurs to me I don't really know or care about it. The internet certainly seems to and the game's emerged as something of a cult classic since its release with much greater attention and significance placed upon its contents by fans, but that wasn't and isn't my focus. The distinctive colour palette, the satisfaction of chaining kills together, the inherent playability of something which respawns you instantly after death (the trophy for dying 1000 times comes very naturally), the top, top soundtrack - it's all enough to have you focused entirely on the visceral content rather than any attempt at anything more meaningful.

Which reminds me...

 

[Commander Clueless]

Papers, Please (PC) 8/10

I heard lots of good things about this game, and decided to pick it up.


Surprisingly dark and depressing, but also very interesting. I had figured it would be a fairly casual game I could play whilst doing other things, but it turns out it requires a fair bit of focus.

I never thought border guard simulator would be that fun, but I enjoyed it immensely.