The last few games you beat and rate them IV

[Ceremony]

​

Star Wars Battlefront II (PS4, 2017)

Before I start this write-up I'd like to offer two caveats:

- I have seen two of the new Star Wars films; The Force Awakens and Rogue One. I didn't see the point. The Force Awakens felt like badly written fan-fiction with a budget. Imagine the idea: "Let's make a new Star Wars film! It'll have a hero who thinks they're a nobody until they realise they're magic. There'll be a big evil group of people with a chief baddie in a black cloak and a mask. There'll be some sort of resistance group fighting against them. The baddies will have a big planet-shaped weapon. It'll have all the big stars from the original film for... reasons." Thrilling. My problem with new Star Wars is broadly the same as the expanded universe stuff that existed before it. I just don't care. When the films are done, the story is too. I don't care if someone tells me Darth Maul was still alive after being cut in half and falling several hundred feet down a hole. I really don't care if someone tells me the Emperor is still a thing after falling several hundred feet down a hole and exploding.

- I started playing this game in June 2020. The game I played was not representative of the lootbox-ridden shitshow that it was at launch. From what I remember of the reaction to Battlefront II at the time, it was a disgrace.

Battlefront II has a single player campaign. You are Iden Versio, the usual non-entity in the Empire somewhere who loves being evil. The second Death Star explodes and she's gutted. She goes to see her dad who's an Admiral on a Star Destroyer to find out what the plan is. "We are going to destroy our home world! Blow it up like Alderaan!" "Er, the whole planet is loyal to the Empire. This plan is stupid." "Nobody will cross the Empire when they see how serious we are!" Bang, double cross. This paragraph is the same amount of character development the game gives you, I'm not exaggerating.
The campaign has 13 missions. If you thought my assessment of Iden's character was glib, there's a mission each where you play as Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Lando Calrissian and Kylo Ren. The game seems desperate to have you playing as classic characters in classic locations, rather than try and make a new, interesting character or story. Lando's chapter is particularly embarrassing since Billy Dee Williams actually does the voice acting. He's about 50 years older than Lando is. He sounds so old I actually found it a bit uncomfortable.

I don't have much else to say about the single player. I played through it twice and I never really knew what was going on, that's how uninteresting it was. I'd watch a cutscene setting up the next chapter, the chapter would start and I'd be shooting something, or in a ship shooting at things and... what? I didn't know, I had no reason to care. Even the gameplay feels half-hearted. When you play as Iden you can do stealth takedowns, but it's virtually impossible to kill more than one or two Stormtroopers before you're spotted.

Despite not having played it in what must be over twelve years, I can still remember the original Battlefront II. In a time before online play it was something I would sit at for hours, playing stand-alone matches or going into Galactic Conquest and gradually taking over the galaxy. I remember space battles where I'd load up a transport and infiltrate the enemy's base. I think everyone who played that game would have fond memories of it. The online in the new Battlefront II doesn't compare at all.

Let's take Starfighter Assault first. You're in space and you're either defending or attacking an objective. Fine. The attacking team always has far too many spawns, starting off with 150 and getting an extra 100 for every stage of the battle. So if you're defending you have the added bonus of always being very unlikely to win, to go along with the general tedium of having nothing to do but shoot down enemy ships. It takes some effort to make a game mode based on one of Star Wars' most exciting features this boring, but they've managed it.

I'm going to be honest and say that I didn't spend much time in the other game modes. Ewok Hunt seemed fun, a hide and seek mode where you're on Endor as either a Stormtrooper or an Ewok. It's night, and if you're a Stormtrooper you need to survive until morning. You can't see in the dark, the Ewoks can. The sheer novelty of this was amusing, and is probably the only thing I'm going to remember of this game in a few months despite only playing one match of it. The other online game modes were just an exercise in frustration as more experienced players knew all the sightlines and choke points and made the game impossible to play never mind learn.

Thankfully there's a co-op mode which is more like old Battlefront. You and up to three others are paired up online and you have a set amount of time to either capture or defend some objectives against AI opponents. This is fine, and it's where I spent the majority of my time. Some maps are terrible, with final objectives that can't be captured because there's another level underground that covers the catchment area, and you can't clear out both of them at once. There's a good range of playable characters to use, from the four base units to the more advanced, faction-based characters, armour, and then the heroes. Unlocking these extra characters in-match was quick and easy enough, and when someone on your team actually knew how to use them, it generally made the fighting a bit easier. Some heroes have team-based abilities which might help in larger scale online modes, but the gameplay seems a bit too hectic for anything but passive abilities to have any meaningful effect.

Despite all of this game's controversies and despite the time I spent on it, my lasting opinion is going to be the same as that of new Star Wars that I described at the start. I don't care. During co-op matches I played I didn't care if I won or lost. I wasn't desperate to capture an objective or hold off wave after wave of enemies. The entire experience was as generic as you can imagine, and that's all I really have left to say. To have source material as popular and as interesting as Star Wars and make a game this dull could almost be considered an achievement. I might be impressed if I could focus on it for long enough to care.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Post Void - 7/10

Post Void is a short but fun roguelike FPS that is all about speed. Your health is constantly depleting and the only way to refill it is by killing enemies. Hang around in one spot for too long and you're dead. Headshots work best but are hard to pull off with how fast you move but you still need to pull them off. Overall, it's a pretty fun game that you'll 100% in probably an hour-hour and a half. For $3 at full price, can't go wrong.

 

[aleshemsky83]

Man Gears of War Ultimate Edition is such a great remaster. Its basically a fully current gen game now with the makeover they gave it. Certainly looks better than Halo infinite, lol. Tbh though, I felt like I was missing out not having played this co-op. This feels like the era of shooters made for co-op. Gears of War, Halo, CoD zombies

On a sidenote, it does crack me up that the final boss on the highest difficulty is basically only beatable by glitching him. It seems like that boss especially was designed around co-op, because on single player he essentially insta-kills you if you step out of cover and your AI partner dies instantly.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Lucius - 3/10

I didn't finish it but I played enough to know I never want to go back...

The game takes place in your family's mansion as you explore it for particular tools and interact with particular items in particular ways to kill unsuspecting people working in your house. The idea is pretty cool and the deaths are so ridiculous that it's almost like a horror/comedy game. That being said, the game feels like such a chore. You have to explore this huge mansion to find the particular tool and interact with the particular item to kill your particular target. This isn't really open world like Hitman with multiple ways to off your targets or you can do things in the order you want. Everything is really rigid and with little to no clues, you'll find yourself running around aimlessly looking for things to interact with.

As a result, I would say to avoid this game. Even with the interesting concept of being the devil's child who has to kill people, it's just so tedious. There's too much exploration with no benefit to it other than running around aimlessly until you happen to find a random tool and interact with the random, correct item to kill your targets. The only enjoyable part is watching the ridiculous ways people die but you'd be better off watching a YouTube video showing all the deaths than going through the actual game.

 

[Section337]

As per the 100% thread, I am one of those who will play the crap out of a game, which is made obvious by the fact that my year has really only involved 4 games. Being about to start my 5th, I thought I would give my opinion on the other 4, which I will break up into individual posts. Sorry if it is somewhat spammy.

Metal Gear Solid Five: The Phantom Pain - 7.25 out of 10

I had only played the prior game, when I first got back into consoles and came away wondering if games now are just cut scenes of crappy stories. Of course, I have learned this is not the case and the open world intrigued me, so when the full game got under $10, I thought I would try it out. And honestly, it is the open world aspects that made the game for me.

Story wise, it's just a spaghetti bowl of ideas and headlines, from when I was younger, thrown against the wall. A story that is obviously not finished, involving repeating missions. Missions where I often wondered if the makers of the game actually understood how their game played or why a good stealth game needed advancement via superhero fights. In general, I rarely spent more than one partial evening a week progressing the story.

However, I found it quite relaxing to spend time in the world, driving around, performing side missions, kidnapping dummies who decided that was a good enough reason to join my team and choking out everyone in a base. It was a game where I would put the controller down and come back hours later to see my character hanging out with his dog in the middle of a desert burning gas in his jeep. Or see how much faster, sneakier or destructive I could be in repeating one of the radiant missions for the Nth time. Likely kept playing for longer than I normally would, since I hadn't decided what I would play next.

Character wise, I really didn't care, as I quickly found myself playing one of the rescues / kidnapped, rather than the main character. Although, it is hilarious to have that main character teleporting in for some cutscenes your current character triggered. While the side characters were often just side caricatures.

Expansion wise, I played the first infiltration a couple of times, but without the free roaming, I wasn't that interested in progressing.

 

[Section337]

Code Vein - 7 out of 10

This was a much more straightforward dungeon crawling type of game, with little opportunity to get off the rails, outside of a bit of level grinding (something my skill level requires in these soulsborne knockoffs). For these non-From Software games, I would say it is better than Lords of the Fallen and worse than Nioh. It also likely gets a bit of a bump in score from meeting fairly low expectations and looking different than most games I would choose to play.

Story wise, it's fairly simple. The world went woops, so you need to see how the survivors kick ass. The difference being those survivors are, I guess, anime dolls. I can find something entertaining about playing a Barbie doll of doom because I chose a female character to play. Or better to say Barbie doll of dual doom because I didn't care about gitting gud enough to stop using a companion.

Of course a game like this is all about a path followed by a boss. The quality of the paths varied quite a bit in my mind, I liked the amount of shortcut discovery and the different appearances but some areas were too long and too repetitive. The critters you killed also sank under repetition. As far as bosses, I don't know if any of the bosses were particularly good, little alone great. Just too much zoom zooming about for my liking, every boss seems to be able to fly or speed away / to you. This often turns a boss fight into a track meet where portions of the fight involve you unable to do anything other than prepare to get out of the way of their borderline unavoidable attacks. Though to be fair, I found too much of that creeping into Dark Souls 3, for my liking as well. Just not as poorly done.

Character wise, very similar to the prior game, I didn't much care. This is truly the case of playing a picture without any personality beyond what you invest in it. More personality and story was given to the side characters but not much deeper than a surface level.

Expansion wise, I played a bit of the first but since they basically just seemed like boss or arena battles, I didn't progress that far.

 

[Section337]

Red Dead Redemption 2 - 6 out of 10

I really wonder how much this was hurt by playing this game during the middle of a pandemic lockdown because I found it a terribly depressing place. Not post apocalypse, world at war, world invaded or science gone wrong depressing, as is the norm in computer games. Instead I found it to be lower middle class kid, moving away to university and struggling to make friends or have enough money for entertainment while living in a cruddy basement suite who discovered some “deep” music level of depressing.

That said, it was gorgeous and I could totally relax while exploring it. Sometimes self indulgent, with how ponderous things could be but I really enjoyed wandering, riding through the world, hunting/fishing a fair amount then camping in one of the various biomes. The collecting and side aspects of the game were right in my wheelhouse. However, you needed to advance the story to open more of the “open” world and this is what caused me to stop playing, just at the start of the 4th chapter.

For this one I am going to compare story wise with character wise, since this is where it totally went off the rails for me. Simply put, while I really liked being my version of Arthur Morgan, frontiersman, I couldn’t stand playing as Rockstar’s version of Arthur Morgan, lieutenant of Dutch’s Dumbasses. Honestly, what a group of idiots, either delusional, incompentant, psychopathic or just losers with nowhere else to go. The side character dolls in Code Vein had as much depth as the characters in RDR2. Unfortunately, I did not care if Arthur Morgan was redeemed or followed in the footsteps of his predecessor/successor.

Expansion wise, I guess that would consist of online play. I think I had a brief thought about playing that but never really expected I would.

 

[Section337]

Mass Murderin Creed Odyssey - 8.25 out of 10

I have played enough Mass Murderin Creed to be fairly sure I am a Templar at heart. To consider the Mass Murderers exist as a symbiotic maggot who eats away the corrupted flesh of the Templar body. One advances humanity and society while the other just serves as an executioner. As for the whole elder race bullshittery, it just robs humanity of both its greatest and worst achievements.

It is also obvious that the game has too much game and has too many mechanisms. And outside of exploration, maybe some stealth aspects, not many of those mechanisms are top of class. In particular, it repeats things so much I understand why it has faced such pushback and their boss fights are terrible. Boss fights that have many of the same weaknesses as MGSV but are more frequent, take much longer and have more one hit kill variability.

All that said, I played the crap out of this game, 100 percenting both the game and the expansion. Though I switched from normal to easy difficulty after the main story.

Story wise, it is the origin before Origins, so precursors to both teams and only the modern day assassholes really tie in with the assassins. You don’t even play one, instead you play a mercenary with a heart of gold and the moral ambiguity that allows you to kill someone who looked at someone, who you just met on the street, the wrong way. You are always such a trusting dork in these games, able to make life long relationships involving the most involved conspiracies just by having a conversation. Beyond that it is based on “reality”, which grounds some aspects, and on Assassin’s Creed “reality”, which often tramples over that grounding.

Otherwise, it’s a lot, like super lots, of what you would expect from one of these games. Lots of exploration, helping out those in need in the newest area you reach. Wiping out some camps or forts because there are chest icons and that is how you get a checkmark on the icon replacing one of the 100s of checkmarks you reach. This can also get you into a battle between the Athenians and Spartans but this wasn’t a mechanism I was too keen upon. Killing somebody or sinking some ships because someone asked you to or because there was a post-it on a statue. Along with sometimes advancing the story, which was nothing more than ok. Pretty standard stuff, though I liked the not quite side, but more tangential aspect of hunting cult members.

Character wise, I played as Kassandra and liked her more than any of the previous characters I have played in these games. Well acted and experienced multiple aspects of being a human. She would have been excellent on the other team, which is the real secret of this series. The story line characters you play and kill are just on a side based on one side or the other based upon who they ran into first. Side characters were likely the strongest of the four games, in particular those who had lives that made them the main character in their own stories, which advanced while I was farting about.

Expansion wise, provided much more origins and explanation than the main game, which I am meh on. But they did add a fair amount based on buying the bundle when the price is cut 50-70% or whatever I paid.

I also have to give it a kudos for continuing the discovery tour stuff started in Origins.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West - 8/10

Enslaved is kind of a 3D action platformer. Combat is like a slightly slower spectacle fighter similar to Devil May Cry. There's some minor puzzles but there's also a lot of platforming. Climbing can be fun but at times feels a bit dated. Particularly when you're trying to jump down a platform, you have to be kind of in the center of the edge rather than near a corner. It feels a bit dated at times there and you get the occasional annoying camera angle that throws you off.

That being said, the combat's fun, the story's great, the climbing is still enjoyable overall. It's an older game, I knew it was kind of like a hidden gem and I can see why. I remember this game didn't get much praise when it came out but I enjoyed the other similar Ninja Theory games so I decided to give this one a go and I'm glad I did. I definitely recommend this one even years later. While you may feel some sections feel a little bit dated, it still holds up really well. Just remember to update the .ini files if you plan on running this over 1080p and 60fps.

edit to avoid the double post:

I Expect You To Die - 8/10

This is a great escape room style puzzle game all in VR. There's some good humor. It's relatively short for the price but definitely worth picking up on sale. It was one of the first VR games I remember coming out and it still holds up despite the fact that I played it a few years later. If you enjoy puzzle games and have a VR headset, this game is great. I definitely recommend picking it up.

 

[aleshemsky83]

Code Vein - 7 out of 10

This was a much more straightforward dungeon crawling type of game, with little opportunity to get off the rails, outside of a bit of level grinding (something my skill level requires in these soulsborne knockoffs). For these non-From Software games, I would say it is better than Lords of the Fallen and worse than Nioh. It also likely gets a bit of a bump in score from meeting fairly low expectations and looking different than most games I would choose to play.

Story wise, it's fairly simple. The world went woops, so you need to see how the survivors kick ass. The difference being those survivors are, I guess, anime dolls. I can find something entertaining about playing a Barbie doll of doom because I chose a female character to play. Or better to say Barbie doll of dual doom because I didn't care about gitting gud enough to stop using a companion.

Of course a game like this is all about a path followed by a boss. The quality of the paths varied quite a bit in my mind, I liked the amount of shortcut discovery and the different appearances but some areas were too long and too repetitive. The critters you killed also sank under repetition. As far as bosses, I don't know if any of the bosses were particularly good, little alone great. Just too much zoom zooming about for my liking, every boss seems to be able to fly or speed away / to you. This often turns a boss fight into a track meet where portions of the fight involve you unable to do anything other than prepare to get out of the way of their borderline unavoidable attacks. Though to be fair, I found too much of that creeping into Dark Souls 3, for my liking as well. Just not as poorly done.

Character wise, very similar to the prior game, I didn't much care. This is truly the case of playing a picture without any personality beyond what you invest in it. More personality and story was given to the side characters but not much deeper than a surface level.

Expansion wise, I played a bit of the first but since they basically just seemed like boss or arena battles, I didn't progress that far.

Man this game in hindsight, was kind of a piece of crap. It could have been good if it was half as long and they didn't make you sit through a loading screen and walking section just to listen to lore/story and look at statues.

You can actually see the development problemsthis game went through. One character explains what the games "bonfire" is like halfway through the game. That's because that was actually the opening of the game originally and they just never bothered to change the dialogue. It seems like the higher ups also told them "the game isnt long enough, make every area an identical looking maze to pad the length out in the second half".

Also, ultra greatswords are seriously overpowered in this game.

I liked the story, though I did have to look up what the meaning of the ending was, apparently the ending revealed the game took place in another game franchises universe that I won't spoil. Didn't do anything for me but fans might like it.

I actually prefer Lords of the fallen to this just because it respects my time, it's like a 5 hour game compared to a padded 30 of code vein. I hated nioh I would rank it at the bottom.

 

[aleshemsky83]

Fractured But Whole

Man a genuinely great game. I probably played it too quickly because it literally had like a seasons worth of gags in it. My only criticism was that the difficulty is uneven. Some late game bosses are just mind numbingly easy while others are so difficult you think it might be the last boss in the game even if it's not.

 

[aleshemsky83]

Streets of Rage 4

Ok, this game is really good. I highly recommend playing it while there's still some players playing online co-op (or better with local coop), this game is just a lot better with co-op.

As per the 100% thread, I am one of those who will play the crap out of a game, which is made obvious by the fact that my year has really only involved 4 games. Being about to start my 5th, I thought I would give my opinion on the other 4, which I will break up into individual posts. Sorry if it is somewhat spammy.

Metal Gear Solid Five: The Phantom Pain - 7.25 out of 10

I had only played the prior game, when I first got back into consoles and came away wondering if games now are just cut scenes of crappy stories. Of course, I have learned this is not the case and the open world intrigued me, so when the full game got under $10, I thought I would try it out. And honestly, it is the open world aspects that made the game for me.

Story wise, it's just a spaghetti bowl of ideas and headlines, from when I was younger, thrown against the wall. A story that is obviously not finished, involving repeating missions. Missions where I often wondered if the makers of the game actually understood how their game played or why a good stealth game needed advancement via superhero fights. In general, I rarely spent more than one partial evening a week progressing the story.

However, I found it quite relaxing to spend time in the world, driving around, performing side missions, kidnapping dummies who decided that was a good enough reason to join my team and choking out everyone in a base. It was a game where I would put the controller down and come back hours later to see my character hanging out with his dog in the middle of a desert burning gas in his jeep. Or see how much faster, sneakier or destructive I could be in repeating one of the radiant missions for the Nth time. Likely kept playing for longer than I normally would, since I hadn't decided what I would play next.

Character wise, I really didn't care, as I quickly found myself playing one of the rescues / kidnapped, rather than the main character. Although, it is hilarious to have that main character teleporting in for some cutscenes your current character triggered. While the side characters were often just side caricatures.

Expansion wise, I played the first infiltration a couple of times, but without the free roaming, I wasn't that interested in progressing.

This game would have been probably 10 times better without the open world. Just 4 or 5 maps the size of ground zeroes would have done it. I loved the cutscenes for the long camera takes and the dramatic cinematography, but yeah the story was garbage. Even though it got tons of crap for being a 1 hour long 40 dollar game, I have to say in hindsight, Ground Zeroes is the better game.

 

[Commander Clueless]

Hades (PC)

Recently put this one down after being obsessed with it for quite some time. Got to the "true" ending (I think), although there's still plenty to do if I ever pick it back up again.

For someone who doesn't typically enjoy roguelikes/roguelites, this one stunned me. Absolute must buy IMO.

I tend to shy away from number ratings, but I gotta give this one a 10/10.

2020 Game of the Year so far, if anyone asks me.

(Assuming of course it counts, as it was in early access back in 2018 I believe. Also assuming I can't nominate Persona 5 Royal....look 2020 is a weird year )

 

[GlassesJacketShirt]

Crackdown 3 (Xbox One, PC)
Developed by Sumo Digital, plus others

My thoughts on it matches the consensus: it's fun enough at first, but it gets old in a hurry. It's a 2007 game made in 2020. Doesn't make it bad so much as outdated, and I feel like the original did a better job with base layouts. It just becomes a chore to play past the two hour mark.

Oh, and I didn't bother with multiplayer whatsoever.

Score: 4/10

 

[Commander Clueless]

Final Fantasy VII-Remake (PS4)

Finally polished this one off, playing off and on for a while.

I have to say, I really enjoyed this game...up until the final chapter.

As someone who didn't play the original, I was very interested in the story of this game.....and then at the end, from what I can tell, they opted to speak exclusively to people who had played the old one.

I really think that was a terrible ending for anyone who hasn't played the original game, because I didn't even know enough to be truly confused without looking up and/or hearing about the comparisons to the old one.

After consulting with my wife (who played the original) and some sources online, I think I understand what they were going for....and honestly it's a cool idea. But going in knowing nothing, it's just....bizarre.


Other than that, I thought it was pretty great. My other minor criticism would probably be just how damn tight the FOV was. In some sections it was hard to see what the hell was going on.

 

[aleshemsky83]

Final Fantasy VII-Remake (PS4)

Finally polished this one off, playing off and on for a while.

I have to say, I really enjoyed this game...up until the final chapter.

As someone who didn't play the original, I was very interested in the story of this game.....and then at the end, from what I can tell, they opted to speak exclusively to people who had played the old one.

I really think that was a terrible ending for anyone who hasn't played the original game, because I didn't even know enough to be truly confused without looking up and/or hearing about the comparisons to the old one.

After consulting with my wife (who played the original) and some sources online, I think I understand what they were going for....and honestly it's a cool idea. But going in knowing nothing, it's just....bizarre.


Other than that, I thought it was pretty great. My other minor criticism would probably be just how damn tight the FOV was. In some sections it was hard to see what the hell was going on.

Yeah, pretty much, people were saying to play the original before playing this, and I'm glad I did. The end is basically one big fourth wall break.

 

[JESSEWENEEDTOCOOK]

Soma: noticeably worse version of Amnesia IMO. The story was intriguing but a lot of the “gameplay” was frustrating, which is pretty crazy for a game that’s basically a walking sim. There are so many things that are like hidden in darkness and don’t stand out that I could look around rooms for 20 minutes and have no idea what the f*** I’m doing. I ket trucking through to get to the ending and it was just kinda meh imo. Pretty disappointed with this one, especially since I had high hopes considering how much I LOVED Amnesia.

resident evil 7: f***ing incredible game. Best survival horror game I’ve played since SH2. The story is cool and my god is it terrifying. Legitimately had to pause it several times out of fear. The scares aren’t cheap either. The atmosphere is just nuts, and they put just the right amount of opportunities for ammo - not abundant but not utterly impossible to have a decent amount. My only complaint is that the boss battle with Jack/the chainsaw is kinda broken and frustrating. Otherwise it was basically perfect.

resident evil 2 remake: also amazing, but not QUITE as good as 7. I don’t think most of the game was as scary, except for the Mr. X part. Good lord, those footsteps are terrifying. Story also wasnt as interesting. Graphics were insane, though. Everything was gorgeous (well idk if “gorgeous” is the right word lol).

 

[Srsly]

I just finished the Cat Quest 2 co-op campaign with my spouse. I took a chance on the original based on a $1.99 sale and ended up picking this one up as well. They’re both solid games with couch co-op making the second the more enjoyable of the two. There’s some pretty terrible puns but the experience is close purr-fect if you’re a fan of old school adventure games or RPGs from the SNES era. I’d probably rate it an 8.5/10 and strongly suggest it for someone looking for a lighthearted nostalgia driven experience.

 

[Unholy Diver]

Mario 64 from Mario 3D all stars

I never played this one on the N64, so this was my first time, it set the stage for the modern 3D Mario games which have been great to amazing in recent years, this one has some warts of course, but it is tough to beat it up too much considering it is over 20 years old, Not going to give it a grade on a 10 pt scale, but it is still pretty enjoyable and worth playing if like me, you missed it the first time around

 

[Soedy]

Assassin's Creed Odyssey: 7,5 / 10

I was really torn between 7.5 and an 8 but there is so much that could have been better. I am glad I played on PC so I could use a tweak to give me 2.5x XP multiplier and update my ship completely. I really didn't want to grind the ship and XP to get further in the story. I think the main story should be playable without doing any side missions in terms of leveling, just adjust the enemy level. Story was good in the beginning but got out of hand a little bit. Graphics wise it was between breathtaking and "oh my gosh what's that". I played on 4k, medium to high settings and sometimes the textures or geometry looked absolutely awful, stunning at other times.

In the end, more variety, better story and a shorter game would have made the game better. I really hope they adjust this with Valhalla.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Ghostrunner - 9/10

The best way I can describe Ghostrunner is a first person, parkour, melee action version of Hotline Miami. Everyone dies in one hit, enemies and yourself. There are rooms that are set up almost like puzzles where you need to figure out the best way to take everyone out without getting killed yourself. The combat is fast paced, intense, and a ton of fun. There aren't many games that makes me feel like a badass but this one does it. It's really hard, challenging, but also incredibly rewarding and satisfying when you pull it all off. The game is incredibly fast paced so if you don't like fast games, it's not the game for you.

This game kind of came out of nowhere and I'm glad there was a demo for it because it made it an instant buy for it. It's not too long, you can probably beat the game in 6-7 hours, but I found it a blast to go back and try to replay rooms and levels to beat them more efficiently. There are times and death counts for leaderboards with friends if you want to compete with friends too. Overall, this game was a pleasant surprise considering I didn't even hear about it until a couple weeks before release. I had an absolute blast throughout the whole thing and it's definitely a new favorite for me. I highly recommend it.

 

[PAZ]

Hades (PC)

Recently put this one down after being obsessed with it for quite some time. Got to the "true" ending (I think), although there's still plenty to do if I ever pick it back up again.

For someone who doesn't typically enjoy roguelikes/roguelites, this one stunned me. Absolute must buy IMO.

I tend to shy away from number ratings, but I gotta give this one a 10/10.

2020 Game of the Year so far, if anyone asks me.

(Assuming of course it counts, as it was in early access back in 2018 I believe. Also assuming I can't nominate Persona 5 Royal....look 2020 is a weird year )

I just bought it, about 2-3 hours put into it. Does it get easier?

I've only made it to the third boss once and that was with some luck. I find the game pretty RNG based, at least to start. Obviously if I got better at the game it wouldn't be as much of an issue, but I find some are so much stronger than others.

 

[Commander Clueless]

I just bought it, about 2-3 hours put into it. Does it get easier?

I've only made it to the third boss once and that was with some luck. I find the game pretty RNG based, at least to start. Obviously if I got better at the game it wouldn't be as much of an issue, but I find some are so much stronger than others.

Yes, your power objectively grows substantially along with learning the fights, etc. There are other ways to increase the difficulty for further reward too.

If you're getting frustrated early on, there is a setting in the menu called "god mode" or something like that. I didn't realize it was there until much later, but it can help you get through the earlier game struggles I believe.

That said, I would recommend to keep on trying and dying. It moves the narrative along and I rather enjoyed that aspect. (It's weird to recommend that as someone who typically isn't a fan of roguelites )

And yes, some builds are more powerful than others, and some are based on playstyle. You do gain the ability to manipulate what boons you get to a certain extent later on as well.

 

[PAZ]

Yes, your power objectively grows substantially along with learning the fights, etc. There are other ways to increase the difficulty for further reward too.

If you're getting frustrated early on, there is a setting in the menu called "god mode" or something like that. I didn't realize it was there until much later, but it can help you get through the earlier game struggles I believe.

That said, I would recommend to keep on trying and dying. It moves the narrative along and I rather enjoyed that aspect. (It's weird to recommend that as someone who typically isn't a fan of roguelites )

And yes, some builds are more powerful than others, and some are based on playstyle. You do gain the ability to manipulate what boons you get to a certain extent later on as well.

Oh man, this is a game changer and from what I've read it doesn't effect anything else. I use to love grinding through these type of games and while I still do to an extent, I don't have the freedom to game as much as I did when I was younger.

Appreciate the tip!

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Batman: The Enemy Within - The Telltale Series - 8/10

It's your typical Telltale game with Batman. I enjoyed the first Batman Telltale game and enjoyed this one as well. This seems like a boring review but it's all story and I thought the story was well done.