The last few games you beat and rate them III

[The Gongshow]

Outlast : 8/10
Outlast Whistleblower : 8.7/10

I had watched a play through of these when they came out 3 years ago, but never played them myself. Was in the mood for a good horror game and decided to give the game a shot. I honestly forget a lot of the plot and levels and was basically going in blind.

The game sets up amazingly tense and terrifying atmosphere. Some really messed up and scary characters, settings and situations. The inmates are all crazy, the “bosses” are even more messed up. A nut job priest, a giant to an insane doctor, a nude canabal to a groom in love with you trying to … turn you into a women… The game provides a lot of back story for these characters as well which is nice.

The use of the camera and night vision is fantastic and really helps bring up the scare factor. A few jump scares thrown in, just like in every horror game, a few tedious objectives and a enormous asylum/prison/research lab and you’re all set for a spooky adventure.

I enjoyed the DLC, Whistleblower, more than the main story, it was a lot creepier and has a better ending and finishes the story off right. I also find the plot of the DLC better than that of the main game. Both are amazing and I would recommend playing the game if you’ve just seen walkthroughs.

Can’t wait for Outlast II

 

[Ceremony]

Beyond Good & Evil HD (PS3, 2011 - originally 2003)

Every now and then my largely passive approach to playing new games via PS+ throws up a gem. Something in a genre I would never have previously considered, a premise I wouldn't have cared about, something like that. Something I might have never heard of, even. In the case of this game it could be something I didn't have the chance to play when it came out originally but which has been remade, modernised for a new audience. Wikipedia tells me BG&E was critically acclaimed but didn't sell well, so this theory would seem to hold some water. It's something I didn't play, something which was good, something I can now play.

Five minutes into the game I get the distinct impression I've been grossly misinformed. Let me get the technical stuff out of the way first: it plays well enough, the platforming and the combat - what little there is of it - is all there and functional. When enemies appear there's what I could best describe as auto-aiming which hinders your movement a bit. You can't roll away properly if you get swamped (and you generally do) but most enemies offer virtually no threat anyway so it's not much of a problem.

Now. The problems. The problems are... everything else, really. The characters are all terrible. You play as Jade, who has a completely unexpressive face and voice. She can do kung-fu of some sort. She has a stick which she hits people with. Great. There's no variation in the combat at all. You hit Square over and over and the same thing happens every time. There's a charge attack, only for it to work you need to be close to enemies, only when you're near enemies they sort of... attack. Jade lives in a lighthouse which comes under attack from "the DomZ" which are this assortment of weird things in the picture which fall out of the sky and attack/abduct people who live on Hillys, the planet she lives on. The game doesn't let its strange punctuation end there (they're simply called 'Doms' rather than 'Dom-Zee' as you might have inferred) as Jade has an NPC best friend called Pey'J. Or "Page," as someone normal would write it. Pey'J is a pig. With a southern accent. Who in the midst of combat is prone to yelling out things like GUACAMOLE! at the top of his voice for no reason. He gets abducted quite quickly which you'd think was good, except he gets replaced by someone you've never met who you break out of a prison. He's called H-H (Double H, obviously) and he's filled with even more inane ***** than the pig, yelling CARLSON AND PETERS! every time he does something. He seems to be referring to some manual for warfare because he calls out page numbers sometimes when he does it. It's really, really annoying. Jade's last companion is the hologram who lives in her backpack. Who of course is Hispanic, because why shouldn't he be? Every variety of Earth-bound ethnicity seems to be present on this tiny planet. There's the extremely Rastafarian rhinoceroses who sell her upgrades for her hovercraft. There's the Chinese walrus who gives her copies of the rebel newspaper she helps create.

So in piloting these four imbeciles through a very short and repetitive world with boring combat you have to... well, what do you do? It's hard to describe properly because every character in the game seems to operate under the premise that what they're doing is very serious and necessary but the pay-off is just dreadful. For what is a pretty loaded title of a game there's no sense at all of any meaningful character development, conflict or purpose. You go up into the moon where these DomZ things come from and kill one of them that's floating around and has three eyes, telling Jade YOU ARE PART OF MEEEEEE as if it's got some sort of significance I'm supposed to understand. Why? Why am I doing any of this? Why am I supposed to care?

Elsewhere, the level designs follow the same basic organisational layout of the open world hub - they're terrible. There's maps for the four actual distinct levels where you undertake missions (which are a few hours long each, it's not as short as I'm making it sound) but these are really unintuitive and unclear. Unclear in fact to the point of frustration as there's very often one of the worst things you can have in games, an assumption on the part of the creators that the player will know what to do. I'm fine with a challenge in games, in working (or trying to work) out stuff in puzzle games. That's part of the point and it's something I expect. I don't expect games to furnish you with a bunch of stuff that effectively boils down to trial and error being what you're dependent on to get through it. This happens a few times with the platforming. There's sections of the walls which look completely indistinguishable from anything else, yet you have to climb them. It's the sort of stuff I'd do when I was ten and too stupid to work out how to do something and started pushing myself against everything in the game to see what I was supposed to be missing. You combine this with the completely obnoxious characters and appalling story... it's not a good combination.

The only other positives I can offer for the game are the vehicle sections. There are "Looter's Cavern" where you go into a cave and have to chase down another flying car, beating various obstacles and closing doors before catching up to them. They're fun. Completely unconnected to anything else in the game, but fun. There's also races with the hovercraft which are basically the same but, inevitably, there's a voice screeching UNBELIEVABLE! IT'S THE LITTLE ROOKIE! after every corner when you're passing people. Maybe that's what to take from the game. That it's at its best when it doing something completely unrelated to the bulk of the game itself, even though it's desperately trying to shoehorn in something to irritate you.

 

[Ceremony]

Ico (PS3, 2011 - originally PS2, 2001)

I get the feeling, probably wrongly condescendingly, that Ico is a game which has a greater proportion of people who know about it but haven't played it than have. It's old, it didn't sell exceptionally well when it was first released (google "Ico American cover art," go on, I'll wait) and it's... well, it's not an easy sell. It's not an easy thing to describe. "What do you do in Ico?" You're this little boy with horns in a huge castle and you find this girl and you try to escape. "Does the girl help you?" No, she runs off to chase pigeons while you're trying to get her to stand on switches. I'm sure it would be very popular.

To focus on the infuriating AI this early is to miss the point, however. Ico is primarily a puzzle-platformer. You move stuff around or you jump across stuff to get to the end. Pretty straight forward. Occasionally you need the girl, Yorda, to stand on a switch. Sometimes black monsters come out of the ground and try to take her back. You can ward them off with a stick or, later on, a sword, a mace or a lightsaber. The what I hesitate at this point to call combat is somewhat out of place with everything else. Maybe it's because it's an old game and the hit detection isn't what I'm used to but there's something very clunky about these sections. Most of them can actually be skipped just by grabbing Yorda and running straight for the exit of wherever you are but when you're forced to engage it's a bit of a pain and really shatters the burgeoning atmosphere that's growing. The same goes for the appalling single location camera that seems to have a mind of its own when you're moving around. Very annoying. And Yorda. Oh, Yorda. I need her to stand on a switch, so I'll call to her while standing just behind the switch. You can't get her to actually do something, you just get her in the location you want. All she can do is stand on stuff. So you do that, then she doesn't move. Or goes where you need her to then moves a step to the side and what you needed to happen goes away. Or she starts climbing a ladder and decides after getting halfway up that she's going back down. This last one is really centric to the trophy for finishing the game in under two hours (1:58:58, thank you for asking) but it's amazing what she can actually do, or not do. I've seen some attempts at justification for this on the internet. "She's supposed to be naïve! She doesn't know who you are or what you're doing! She's been in a cage all her life!" Yeah, well, she's annoying. She almost becomes endearing the more you play it but oh, she's useless. Almost useless enough to make you want to leave her in the castle.

Describing these complaints is somewhat redundant when I haven't told you what they're actually spoiling. Ico is a pretty short game. You can finish it in under two hours, even. Despite this there is a tremendous sense of scale in its setting. The castle you are in is large. It's entirely empty save for the two characters, although there is clear evidence of it having been inhabited previously. There's a sense of isolation, partly from the opening cutscenes which show Ico being taken there from an unspecified village because of his horns, partly because when you're in areas like those in the picture above you can see it being cut off from the rest of the world. Your sole focus is to escape from somewhere unknown to somewhere unknown.

Maybe it's because you play a child who's carrying around someone with no attention span but there's a sense of peril that really transmits to the player that's evident in this game that's rare in others. The impact of the setting's visuals is amplified by the sounds and the minimalist music. The former helps add to the sense of seclusion and insignificance, the latter is exactly what you want in a setting which creates these sensations. It's a perfect compliment. The feeling of the possibility of failure is a phrase which I think best describes how all of these aspects combine to create one overwhelming sensation. You quickly forget that this is a game with rigidly defined objectives you're playing. You want to explore, you want to leave. In exploring, you learn why you want to leave. It's all there is to do.

And why do you want to leave? Ultimately it's a typical fairytale situation I suppose. Yorda exists as some symbol of youth and purity who's being kept hostage by an evil witch who's going to use her youth to prolong her own life. Yorda herself shows no real inclination about wanting to leave. She sort of does whatever Ico wants in a dreamlike way which suggests she's never had any sort of direct order or purpose in her life. This adds to the sense of purpose you feel in controlling Ico in that you're imparting your own on to another character who is entirely reliant upon you. It also means that when she's exasperatingly unresponsive in doing whatever you need her to do you wonder why. Why is Ico's focus on getting this girl out of the castle with him, rather than just himself? Even if I'm to spoil the story for you, when you discover the source of the shadows that have tried to take Yorda back throughout the game you're just filled with more questions. Where have all these horned boys come from? Why? Is Ico doing the right thing in taking Yorda out of the castle? He isn't wanted, these other boys with horns aren't wanted, or so he's led to believe. Is there some greater purpose he has to enact which he can't know about?

Technically, with regard to the graphics and the music and such like Ico is a pretty unforgettable gaming experience. It is short, but playing through it blind, you don't feel like this is the case. The sense of scale within the game itself is enough to overcome any misgivings you have about its real length. The amount of questions you can ask yourself about the story, about why Ico and Yorda are doing what they are, they're endless. You can ask yourself them while you're playing it and for a long time after. The gameplay is pretty straightforward as well as the puzzles, but there's just enough difficulty in the puzzles and the platforming to make getting out the castle the challenge it should be. This combines with the unique atmosphere and the ending to create a tale that fills you with a sort of childlike wonder which believes that stories like this aren't possible, aren't imaginable. It'll stay with you forever if you let it, and you probably should.

The only other thing I have to say about Ico is that I was playing it when I made my first post on HF. Make of that what you will.

 

[CycloneLaunch]

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.

Did you end up finding the orbs to get the second ending? Some of the platforming sections to obtain those were ridiculous.

I finished this recently as well, I agree it seems like the people making the game had a lot of fun with it, it's very whimsical. Outside of the aforementioned Orb sections nothing was too challenging and the soundtrack was great.

Some references were more blatant than others

 

[Ceremony]

Yeah I did everything. I found the combat harder than the platforming. The platforming was all just timing, the combat was... well, worse.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD (PS3, 2012)

When you were younger you had a skateboarding game. You loved it. You played it constantly. Mine was Pro Skater 4. Just had a watch of it there on youtube and remembered how the fun I got out of it was matched only by how useless I was. It inspired in me a joy for something I'd never done. All through the feet of my boy Rodney Mullen, pictured up there. With that (probably) in mind I decided to buy this a long time ago, even after the very lukewarm reviews of it which existed. When I resolved to play it for more than three minutes at a time and actually figure out what to do, hey, it's fun. Sort of. Once you get the gist of it and what to do and how to do it you actually want to play it for more than three minutes at a time. Good thing then that in terms of actual gameplay the game is pretty much everything you could want it to be. It can be frustrating at times. It requires more subtle timing than your instincts want to provide you with. The physics and such are all pretty spot on though. It can be annoying trying to keep speed when using manuals to prolong combos but you can usually persevere to achieve whatever objective it is you're trying to. Just.

My complaints about the game fall partly under that last category but I'll come to another first: Presentation. It's dreadful. The menu graphics look like they were thrown together for a school project in an hour. The music is terrible. Play it for half an hour and you've heard all the songs. Doesn't matter how catchy they are, it's not enough. Even though the game is both short and small there doesn't seem to be any incentive contained within to play it. To figure out the controls (and any terminology which people new to skateboarding wouldn't know) you have to go into the menus and this is a terrible way to impart this sort of information in people. You could read five pages of all of this stuff, go into a level to try and play and end up just smashing buttons aimlessly. It feels... weird. Like the most accessible thing in the world was made to be as deliberately inaccessible as possible. Even technically there's times where the game is just awful. One time I loaded up a level, I honestly saw about five or six different textures loading on the walls before I could start moving. Not being able to move the camera, not being able to properly control your speed - it's annoying. It feels like the game wasn't finished properly or went through very little testing. Little things.

Concerning the game modes themselves the game feels very rigid. You can do a free skate which is fine, you go into a level and fly about trying stuff. That's great. But whenever there's any objectives involved there's always a time limit which feels just a little too short. Doing these makes the game feel very procedural, as if you're only practicing and refining your skills to use them for a short space of time to achieve something which can be incredibly difficult for no tangible reward at all. Completing things gets you cash which you can spend on improving a player's stats, I went from Rodney's default to near total improvement in all of them and barely noticed a difference when I went back to play. Although there is something fun and something different in some of the game modes they never manage to find the right balance between achievement and leisure. There's always just too much pressure on you to do something in just too short a space of time. Then when you've failed you're back to do it again. I have to say, in that regard the replayability is very quick and easy. The quick retry button and short loading times are a godsend. But when you're playing, it's just filled with pressure you don't want.

Not much else to say really. Like many of the most recent Tony Hawk games (in fact apparently everything since my previous experience with the series) this game seems to miss out on what made them so fun and so widely appealing in the first place. It seems amazing that it could be possible to mess up such a simple formula but here, they've managed it. Just with extra strange technical details making it feel even more shabby. The little things build up and can be reasonably counted against your overall impression of the game. It's a shame, really.

 

[aleshemsky83]

Wont give a long review but I beat furi.

Easily one of the best games I've played in the last couple of years.

 

[Ceremony]

Motorstorm RC (PS3, 2012)

You've played Motorstorm, right? Flagship PS3 franchise. Racing games with absolute carnage at the fore. Have your car destroyed five times per race and still win. Spectacular interactive environments that change as a race goes on adding new intrigue and strategy to your drive. Motorbikes up against monster trucks as brute force takes on agility.

Well imagine all of that replaced with a fraction of the scale and a strong focus on lap times and precision. Here you have Motorstorm RC. It's a Vita game this, really. Small scale cars for a small scale console. There isn't a great deal of variety to things. Lots of tight, short tracks and general mayhem in races as you end up battling for position with other cars but without the possibility of crushing them, with the focus being on getting the best time possible, it's not fun. It's infuriating. The level of precision needed here to beat the best times, it's obscene. As far as game modes go there's no real variety. There's races then there's pursuits which need you to pass a set amount of cars, but it's all the same thing. Everything boils down to the times. To the deceptive precision which only seems possible by sheer luck. If you're a sadist and want a challenge, try and Platinum this. If you want some mindless fun, play a real game.

 

[Ceremony]

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light (PS3, 2010)

Going way, way back in my PS+ backlog sees this, a top down shooter with a posh English accent and elements of platforming, shooting and puzzles. It's great fun. Really great fun. It's easy to pick up and when you get the hang of it, it's very addictive with regards to racking up high scores. You want to chain as many kills together as you can as quickly as you can. Of course there's stuff you can collect that makes you more effective. By the time I had tidied up all the collectibles and challenges I was basically untouchable.

There's a co-op mode which I never really played outside getting the trophies for it. This does seem to add another, deeper level of gameplay to proceedings however as the two characters (one being Lara Croft, the other being some sort of statue brought to life by a relic she found being stolen) are dependent on each other for the platforming sections. There isn't anything especially difficult in terms of either the combat or the platforming - having two people shooting the enemies just seems like overkill based on my experience alone - but there's just enough challenge and variety to stop your eyes from glazing over.

My only criticisms would be the simplicity of the combat. You can kill pretty much anything just by shooting it enough. There's a few enemies that need to be bombed at some stage to kill them but it's not much of a variation. There's something strange in the cutscenes. They never show the characters talking. Every time there's dialogue the speaker is facing away from the camera. I found this quite hilarious. The story is also somewhat flimsy too. It starts with an introduction which you think is going to have some nice Aztec period details, facts, stuff like that but it's pretty much never mentioned in any detail after that. This does have the effect of ensuring the focus is on the very good gameplay, but ultimately the game isn't anything beyond that. I guess it doesn't have to be. ~10 hours well spent, and probably better with a friend.

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

Just beat GTA 4 again on my PS3 for the zillionth time.

7/10

 

[vippe]

Last of Us Remastered
PS4, 2014
Naughty Dog

After a sluggish second quarter of the game I really didnt enjoy (why I didnt touch the game for like 4 months) I decided to play it again this sunday for a few hours. Instead I finished the game. The game really really took off inthe second half and I really enjoyed the story and storytelling.

9/10

 

[GlassesJacketShirt]

Short Oldie Review - SPLINTER CELL: CHAOS THEORY (PC, Xbox, PS2, GC)

Going back over a decade ago, Chaos Theory was the third game released for Splinter Cell franchise, just one year after the 2004 release of Pandora Tomorrow.

Although the original Splinter Cell and Pandora Tomorrow were fine games for their time, combining stealth gameplay with solidly constructed levels and run of the mill espionage plots, Chaos Theory separates itself from the first two with less linear mission design, a nice upgrade in graphical fidelity and smoother gameplay mechanics and rules (i.e. no more of that three alarm and you're toast crap). This results in a game that has aged incredibly well; the graphics are still good enough to immerse oneself in the environments while the mechanics and tools give you several ways to complete a mission, depending on if you want to carry more ammunition or go through levels without a peep.

Story may be run of the mill once more, but the continued presence of Michael Ironside as Sam Fisher adds heft to the simplistic plot and character development. As far as stealth games go, this is still one of the kings of genre, hard enough to take seriously, fun enough to enjoy throughout, all anchored by some of the best level design in series' history. Standouts include the Panama Bank, Displace International and Hokkaido Island, the former two in particular showcasing some excellent non-linear mission structure.

Overall, still highly playable, still a classic in my books.

9/10

 

[aleshemsky83]

Only splinter cell game I've played is pandora tomorrow, and it is easily one of the best stealth games I've played. I'll probably get around to chaos theory after I finish hitman absolution

 

[vippe]

Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze
Wii U, 2014
Retro Studios

After almost beating it and completing it (200%) twice but having my 2-3 year old son delete the save file twice! I kind of got sick of it and just played it to beat it (landed on 68% this time). It's a fantastic platformer that will get the completionist treatment later on once I have worked some on my huge backlog.

Awesome graphics, awesome music, great level design and good amount of challenge.

9.5/10

 

[GlassesJacketShirt]

State of Decay
Consoles: PC, Xbox 360
Genre: Post-Apocalyptic, Action, Base Building

Unlike some of my other recent purchases, State of Decay has been sitting in my Steam account for quite some time, most likely a purchase I made during a sale. Finally got around to beating the game, and here are my thoughts.

You and a friend are in the middle of a camping trip when Zombies.

Gameplay is a combination of open-world action with several RPG elements thrown in. Getting past the introductory phase, you and a few friends and strangers bunker down in a small town's church, a small hub of sorts that has some limited protection from the infected surrounding it.

In order to keep surviving in this world resources must be gathered, including food, medicine, oil and ammo. This is by far the greatest part of this game, immersing you into the reality of finite resources (even the cars are a finite resource, so drive with caution) and setting up some tense unscripted moments, such as when you are looking for medicine at a local clinic with a zombie horde about to walk right past your location, meaning you have to be wary of the noise you make.

Resources gathered are used to keep your base fed and, in a neat little twist, upgraded. Build slots are included in your base, allowing you to build such stations as a workshop (creates silencers, molotovs, etc.) or a garden (allows the base to become self-sustainable). Furthermore, as you make your way across the game world more potential base sites open up, allowing you to go bigger should the need arise once you find more live community members to join your band.

Combat is simple but fun: hand to hand weapons carry a limited shelf life, while guns are powerful tools that need to be used sparingly. As you get better at various facets of the game, the character you play as improves his stats and becomes a stronger character, though never to the point that he becomes an outright killing machine. Stamina is very important to watch out for, as running out of it could leave you a sitting a duck.

The story in this game is limited, usually revolving around the military's intervention in the valley and some questionable customers living around. Not much to note here as the plot is ultimately secondary to the aspect of trying to make it in this post-apocalyptic society. Side quests occasionally pop up to liven the experience, such as taking out special zombies or saving neighbors from getting their hearts eaten out.

Very fun little game, not too long so it doesn't outstay its welcome (since to a certain point, there isn't THAT much to do in this world). I am intrigued to see what Undead Labs does for the sequel.

Overall: 7.5/10

 

[GlassesJacketShirt]

Only splinter cell game I've played is pandora tomorrow, and it is easily one of the best stealth games I've played. I'll probably get around to chaos theory after I finish hitman absolution

Pandora Tomorrow was great in its own right as well, loved the train, Jerusalem and Airport levels a lot.

A few other things Chaos Theory did to improve the gameplay: better AI that gave tiers of alertness with guards and secondary objectives that are completely optional. Also added a knife for lethal hand to hand maneuvers and cutting through cloths, plus it looks more intimidating to the people you interrogate.

Then there's the co-op and multiplayer, but that is harder to judge for obvious reasons one decade later. Remember them being top notch at the time though.

 

[aleshemsky83]

Played Absolution, I think it compares favorable to blood money. Much better controls, much shorter sections eliminating the need for statesaves/quicksaves, compareable difficulty to blood money.

Also, this game you actually can't pull out a machine gun and just kill everybody. Even on normal difficult its waaay too hard to beat the game doing that. I actually like that.

Square enix did a great job with the graphics. Looks amazing despite being a 2012 release. The cinematics which are a huge part of the story just look ugly though. Lots of weird glare effects and terrible looking characters compared to the actual gameplay.

 

[vippe]

3 games in less than a week? Hasnt happend since I was 12. Though most of them were almost done when I quit on them hehe.

Star Fox Zero
Wii U, 2016
Nintendo

A game with great potential that sadly is messed up by wonky controllers. Especially when controlling the Walker. It's horribad to be honest. Bosses are great, some maps are really fun. Despite being short storywise it's arcade style gameplay makes it worth playing the stages again to improve your record (some maps, certainly not all of them)

6/10

 

[SpookyTsuki]

Witcher 1: 7/10
Witcher 2: 7/10

And since I'll beat witcher 3 I'll go ahead and give it a 10/10

 

[Ceremony]

Sonic the Hedgehog (PS3, 2012, originally 1991)

Born a year before me as a reaction to the popularity that Nintendo saw with Mario, Sega bequeathed Sonic to the world, a blue hedgehog that can run really fast over his 2D platforming world. He collects rings along the way for... some purpose as he attempts to drive Dr. Robotnik, or as the Japanese called him much more funnily, Egg Man, out of the place where he lives. It's like Rayman on crack, had Rayman not been made several years later.

One particular distinction between Sonic and Mario is the various routes available to finish each level. You don't just go along the ground jumping out of the way of whatever's trying to kill you, you jump, you jump on springs, you get up some speed and go into a ball and fly off a ramp on to who knows where. And that's the problem I have with the game, really. It's not the parts of the level which by their natures will go unexplored. That still bothers me days after I finished it but I got past that. It's the uncertainty. The not knowing where you're going to end up when you've gone skidding off a ramp at full speed. I'm playing this in 2016 with a save function that allows me to pause and save whenever I like - how on earth was a child with a Genesis expected to have the patience to finish this? There isn't any real precision in the platforming either. Sonic doesn't move as soon as you move the stick, he's slow to get up to speed. Infuriating. This lack of precision really grates when you encounter an enemy which you hit at just the wrong angle and lose all your coins. It's sections like this that seem at odds with the ultimate goal of speed, though the game is never difficult enough for this to have you screaming at the TV. Or maybe I just made really good use of the save feature.

I know I'm playing it on an HD console but it looks really good for something that's 25 years old. Very bright, nice wide colour palette and great variation between worlds. The same can be said for the music too, the nice blend of distinctive and infuriating when you've died for the millionth time. If you played it when you were a kid (ie if you're old right now), I'd say give it a revisit. If you're really interested in the history of video games and the inspirations for what is made today, give it a try. Beyond that though there's nothing to really stick with you.

 

[vippe]

Splatoon
Wii U, 2015
Nintendo

Ignoring the multiplayer which is absolutely stellar I decided to play through the last couple of hours of the singleplayer campaign. It's short but enjoyable with good boss fights, then I came to the final boss - DJ Octavio - and oh jebus! That was so much fun, probably among if not the funniest final boss I have ever encountered in any game. I'd give the campaign 8/10 but including the MP which really is among the most entertaining I have played on a console I must give the game as a whole 9/10. One of the best games of the generation IMO.

 

[Ceremony]

Dead Nation (PS3, 2010)

Dead Nation is a game I got free from Sony after the PSN outage in April 2011. A top down shooter of the same mould as the above Lara Croft game, the idea here is to kill zombies. Lots and lots of zombies.

There's honestly not much more to it than that. Pretty predictable story, you're the sole survivor and miraculously immune to becoming one yourself, so you set out to find help. Along the way you kill a good range of different zombie types with a good range of weapon types. There's your standard zombie, the slightly thinner zombie who you can drop in one shot but who usually rushes you fifty at a time, the fat zombie who takes more shots to kill, the fireman zombie who's still in his protective gear and immune to fire, Jumpers who now that I think about it are about twenty times the size of regular ones who jump on you and do damage that way, the Cutters who're the same size who have giant knives for arms, and more besides that. One thing you can certainly say, playing alone, there's always something to be looking for. Although there's a range of weapons they all affect the different types in the same way, so any variety in gameplay is largely enforced by having to run through all your ammo from checkpoint to checkpoint.

The weapons do deserve complimenting however because where this game succeeds is the same place that Lara Croft game succeeded - it's fun to kill your enemies. On the harder difficulties it becomes an extremely tense yet ludicrous affair as you desperately try to get use from your four grenades while running away so you can reload. On the easier difficulties though, you can be on a road with a whole pack of a hundred zombies coming for you. One shot of the blade cutter, one THHHHHHHHWACK later, there aren't any zombies coming for you. That's something which is enjoyable to everyone, video game playing regular or not.

I suppose I'm being unfair in suggesting combat is straight forward. There's occasional sections where you have to kill everything that comes at you rather than just rush to a checkpoint, there's usually some environmental kills you can chalk up here. Shoot a car to make it's alarm go off, zombies run over to hit it and it blows them up. You can even use those Cutters to your advantage in a crowd, if you're crazy enough. The game is very short though. 10 levels which you can finish in about an hour and a half on the easiest (and most fun) difficulty. It took me an hour and a half for the last mission alone on the second-hardest. A game like this is certainly more fun for two, surely. Less stressful. Tactics can play a part there too, have one send off a flare and the other shoot the ensuing mob, rather than me trying to press about four buttons at once to co-ordinate such a spree.

The only real criticism I'd have besides the length is the story, or what exists of it. There's two characters you can play as. I played as the guy first, then the woman on one of my other playthroughs. I expected something different (it's not even cutscenes, just a voiceover with some nice stylised artwork), but it's the exact same dialogue from a different character. Her hair remaining immaculate from picture to picture even after thousands of zombies killed annoyed me too. It's a small thing, and it's not really something you need to criticise in a game like this but the lack of depth really stands out once you stop killing things. Once you stop being a zombie, you could say.

All in, fun game. Play it with some mates round and some booze in, I daresay it goes down a storm. Not bad for a peace offering, even if I played it properly five years after the fact.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE (Wii U, 2016): 8.5/10

It's very Japanese.

 

[Ceremony]

Call of Duty: World at War (PS3, 2008)

In a previous life I attempted to review things. Albums mostly, but video games too when the occasion permitted. I was not generous of COD5. I seem to have put approximately 60 hours into the online - not counting Nazi Zombies, which I'll come to later. It was dreadful. I hated it. I hated the maps, I hated the guns, everything. After playing COD4 it was incomparable. Intolerable. Intolerable is the word I use to describe my thoughts on it when I finally gave up and traded it in in a fit of rage and disgust also. Dreadful stuff. Trying to be clever when you're seventeen, nah. Nasty stuff. But now I've finished it on Veteran seven years later purely to get some trophies I have a whole new layer of scorn to pour on it.

So, what have we now? We have what's really the last major game release set in World War Two. Somewhat new of its time as rather than just killing an endless (and it literally is endless) supply of Nazis you took part in American missions in the Pacific, allowing you to kill an endless supply of Japanese. And hey, it is endless. This game is so old that it contains that previous Call of Duty staple, infinitely respawning enemies. That only stop respawning once you've managed to lunge forward far enough amidst the unseen shots from every direction and the grenade spam. I've only ever finished Modern Warfare 2 and 3 on this difficulty level in Call of Duty and this is far beyond both of them. Enemies can shoot you unseen. The sheer amount of them means that luck plays far too big a part in actually getting anywhere. If you have to get into a building and there's four or five people shooting at you from the windows you can take them all out and quickly move up. This stops them spawning. If you take them all out and wait while there's people firing at you from another location, they'll respawn and you'll be stuck. And there's sections in levels where the spawn points can't be reached because of the amount of enemies coming out of them. This is bad game design. You can say that the infinitely spawning thing is a feature, that's fine, but there's areas which transcend the concept of cheapness and just leave you in disgust. About the only positive you can offer the game here is that it's quite generous with checkpoints. You don't have to go very far in between them, mostly.

Special mention has to go to those grenades. Endless. If you're in cover and waiting to shoot those enemies who're pinging whatever you're hiding behind you'll soon have several grenade indicators appearing, penning you in. When they land next to you and you can throw them back, fine. But when you can't and you need to move from cover to cover you're exposed to all those shots from all those directions. Infuriating. One slight respite exists here in the form of your fellow soldiers. Utterly useless in the sense that they don't shoot anyone and only move up after you've done all the work, they do throw a lot of grenades back. I'm almost thankful for them at that point. Most of the time though you'll find yourself crouching behind cover - that you had to run up and secure - only to find that some useless ***** has come up and occupied the exact same bit of space, forcing you into the open. Or, even better, preventing you from moving at all. At least if it's not one of the people who's named you can knife and kill them with no ill-effect. Special mention here has to go to the Kiefer Sutherland-voiced Sergeant Roebuck who I was quite glad to see killed. Utterly useless. Again, not a feature of difficulty, a downside of bad design.

Still harping on at the bad design angle, look at the picture. Japan in the searing heat, the Pacific island nation sees a surround of... brown. And grey. The assorted fields of Germany and eventual interiors of Berlin you fight in? The aftermath of Stalingrad? Grey. Lots of grey. Lots of brown. Lots of absolutely identical scenery and colours. This coupled with the pretty universal story inspiration of World War Two makes this game a quite repetitive experience with very little room for surprised or anything in the story. There is some inclusion of things like historical footage and an attempt to depict the human side of the war. You're not controlling a trained SAS or Navy Seal here, but the whole thing falls quite flat with everything else that's contributing to it. Couple that with the infuriating nature of the Veteran gameplay and it's not a good experience. About the only instance of variety is a level where you're the gunner on a sea plane who has to take down an assortment of boats and fighter planes, that's different and interesting. But of course it happens at night so everything is pretty much dark grey, save for the orange lifejackets the stranded sailors you save are wearing.

I haven't played it with friends this time around but Nazi Zombies was fun on another level. Even for the relatively short amount of time I played it, being mic'd up with three mates hoping desperately to get the Ray Gun out of the mystery box, trying to beat our record... the memories all came flooding back when I was playing. That I'm thankful for with this game, but everything else... appalling. Even more so that I played it so many years later purely for trophies. I need help.

 

[GlassesJacketShirt]

Rapidfire Round

1. Fable Anniversary
I can comfortably say the original Fable is the inbetweener of the Fable franchise. Very fun game, just not as fully fleshed out as Fable II.
7.5/10

2. Tropico 4
Banana Republic simulator that would have gotten a fairly high score here if it weren't for the sheer lack of improvement from Tropico 3.
5.5/10

3. Trine II
Platforming is simple and fun enough, but gameplay is ultimately a tool to traverse one of the prettiest games every drawn.
7/10

 

[Ceremony]

Ultratron (PS3, 2015, at least it seems the PS3/4 version was)

Ultratron is a shoot-em-up which takes place in that field you see in the picture. You shoot an assortment of enemies and get money to buy upgrades to make shooting them easier. Every ten levels you get a boss, and every now and then you get a special level with certain types of enemies to hit or dodge.

That's pretty much it as far as gameplay goes. The problem is with all the other aspects which make up such games and the fact that they all seem designed to afford you as little joy from the game as possible. The amount of money you get is paltry. It's about level 50 before your purchased upgrades have caught up to what you're fighting - that if you've used the save game exploit and restarted any levels you were hit on rather than spent money on extra shields. The game screen there might seem a bit dark, and it is. It's hard to see what's going on. It's especially hard to see when there's enemies coming at you from four different directions, they're all shooting at you and you're trying to collect the money you get from killing them which disappears far too quickly. It's even harder to see when you have the text hints coming up in the bottom left of the screen actually covering part of the area where you play. Of course, enemies spawn from the edges so you're at an automatic disadvantage when that happens. What's most irritating about this however is that the text doesn't even serve a purpose. And you certainly couldn't read any of it because you're trying to watch multiple things at once elsewhere on the screen.

What you want then from a game like this is replay value and there just isn't any. It's too annoying to build yourself up. It's too repetitive once you do. And it's too hard to follow with the things on screen really struggling to stand out as they blend into each other. It's certainly a good concept for a game, but it's a style which lets it down. I'm sure myriad better games exist on the PS4 and PC.