The last few games you beat and rate them IV

[GretzkytoKurri9917]

South Park: The Fractured But Whole - 9/10

I was a bit nervous to grab this game after seeing a good amount of negative reviews but I'm glad I gave it a go anyway. The combat's different from Stick of Truth, it's more of a tactics style than JRPG. There's a lot great humor in here. I loved all of it. The price still seem high, it should definitely be lower. Wait for a sale to pick it up but if you're a South Park fan, you'll still likely enjoy this. The end fight was a bit disappointing compared to many of the others though.

South Park: The Fractured But Whole - From Dusk Till Casa Bonita - 9/10

I loved the story in this one. You play at Casa Bonita where the vamp kids are having a party and they're bringing Kenny's sister, who you have to save from becoming really lame! You get a new character class that I thought was a ton of fun, definitely the best class in the game. The end boss was a hilarious surprise and you even got a new buddy to play with that had some hilarious dialogue. Definitely the stronger of the DLCs IMO.

South Park: The Fractured But Whole -Bring the Crunch - 8/10

Not as good of a story as From Dusk Till Casa Bonita but it was still enjoyable. You also get a new character class and a new buddy. I thought the new buddy felt like he was weighing you down and the new character class was pretty decent. Overall, this whole DLC felt like a bit of a step back from From Dusk Till Casa Bonita but if you can grab the season pass on sale, it's still worth a playthrough.

Both DLCs were about 2 hours and I finished the base game in about 16. I got the whole thing at 90% off on Steam so definitely a great value for my <$10 that I spent!

Very first South Park Game I played.

 

[aleshemsky83]

Beat the Demon's Souls remake.

This is a true remake. Its not like a Resident Evil remake where its essentially a new game. If you haven't played the original, this completely replaces it and improves upon it. Well everything except the final bosses face imo, dont know why they changed that so drastically. It went from sinister to weak and frail.

To be honest, I wish they decreased the difficulty of NG+ a tad. The dreglings (weakest enemy in the game) can actually wreck you. I would have like to breeze through it with my stats maxed out.

And the performance was fantastic. The 60 fps mode is apparently 1440p upscaled but I honestly can't tell the difference between the native 4k mode and the 1440p mode, rumor is Sony forced them to put it in the game just so they could advertise 4k. Pick the 60 fps mode, theres genuinely no differeence in image quality between the two settings.

Very first South Park Game I played.

The multiplayer was super fun but man the singleplayer was broken. Half the enemies were invincible or had hit boxes the size of a gnat.

 

[GretzkytoKurri9917]

Beat the Demon's Souls remake.

This is a true remake. Its not like a Resident Evil remake where its essentially a new game. If you haven't played the original, this completely replaces it and improves upon it. Well everything except the final bosses face imo, dont know why they changed that so drastically. It went from sinister to weak and frail.

To be honest, I wish they decreased the difficulty of NG+ a tad. The dreglings (weakest enemy in the game) can actually wreck you. I would have like to breeze through it with my stats maxed out.

And the performance was fantastic. The 60 fps mode is apparently 1440p upscaled but I honestly can't tell the difference between the native 4k mode and the 1440p mode, rumor is Sony forced them to put it in the game just so they could advertise 4k. Pick the 60 fps mode, theres genuinely no differeence in image quality between the two settings.


The multiplayer was super fun but man the singleplayer was broken. Half the enemies were invincible or had hit boxes the size of a gnat.

Game had its issues but there was still fun to be had.


Thinking about it the N64 had quite a few fun Games to play with single/friends/family.










As good as the N64 is my favorites will always be NES and SNES.


Super Mario 1,2,3 and Super Mario World + Donkey Kong+ Duckhunt+Kirby+ many others.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Control - 3/10

I didn't beat it but I'm done with it at this point.

There's two pros to this game:

• The visuals - It's definitely one of the nicest looking games out there. Running it with all max settings and raytracing and DLSS enabled on PC, I'm averaging 100 FPS at 1440p. I'm surprised it ran that well.
• The combat - The combat is a ton of fun. It was really satisfying using telekinetic powers to launch objects at enemies. It felt fast paced and hectic and each fight was a lot of fun.

There's one huge issue with the game though that 100% made me resent it. I really wanted to love the game, I was loving it early, but it became incredibly frustrating to play.

There is absolutely 0 sense of direction in this game. The level is designed in like a smaller open world fashion with all these intertwining paths to take. The problem is the game is like "Hey, look at all these different branching paths on the map! Doesn't it look awesome? OK, now that that's out of the way, take this one specific path. Also, we're not going to tell you what path it is. There's only one door you have access to but we're not even going to hint at which door it is, have fun figuring it out!" The game's rated to be anywhere between 10-15 hours long but I legitimately feel like there's only 4-5 hours of content while the rest of the time is figuring out just where you're supposed to go. It's like they couldn't figure out whether to make it an open world or linear game and it completely suffers as a result.

The map is so hard to read. You can't tell what paths you have access to, you can't even tell what's on the upper level or lower level of the map. It's all so confusing. The story was really confusing, I don't know if it starts making sense towards the end but at this point, I just don't care.

The game is a glorified tech demo. I wouldn't even recommend it for that. There are games that look just as good, can still test your system, but are a lot more fun for less money. I probably finish 90-95% of the games I start. This falls into the 5-10% of the games I give up on and with that in mind, I'll never recommend this to anyone.

 

[Osprey]

There is absolutely 0 sense of direction in this game. The level is designed in like a smaller open world fashion with all these intertwining paths to take. The problem is the game is like "Hey, look at all these different branching paths on the map! Doesn't it look awesome? OK, now that that's out of the way, take this one specific path. Also, we're not going to tell you what path it is. There's only one door you have access to but we're not even going to hint at which door it is, have fun figuring it out!" The game's rated to be anywhere between 10-15 hours long but I legitimately feel like there's only 4-5 hours of content while the rest of the time is figuring out just where you're supposed to go. It's like they couldn't figure out whether to make it an open world or linear game and it completely suffers as a result.

The map is so hard to read. You can't tell what paths you have access to, you can't even tell what's on the upper level or lower level of the map. It's all so confusing. The story was really confusing, I don't know if it starts making sense towards the end but at this point, I just don't care.

That sounds very much like Borderlands 2, which I recently finished. I enjoyed it, but the maze-like maps were one of the more frustrating things. A few times, I spent as long as 20 minutes trying to get to the quest marker on the map. I would get near and then realize, nope, I'm on a path that goes under where I'm trying to get, and I'd have to go all the way around to try to approach the marker from the right direction. What I wouldn't have given for a jetpack in that game. The game took longer than it should've because I was spending a lot of it just trying to get myself from point A to point B.

As for Control, I haven't played it yet, but I've gotten the sense that it's so popular mostly because it's a great tech demo, as you said. It'll probably be one of the first games that I try once I upgrade my GPU, but I'll keep my expectations low, especially since we seem to have similar tastes.

 

[Unholy Diver]

Watch Dogs Legion - 8/10

More Watch Dogs stuff, open world, London, hacking, drones and spiderbots. I found this to be the most enjoyable WD's so far, story was good, London made a great setting, and the rotating player character was pretty cool, made you think a little before starting a mission

 

[aleshemsky83]

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

While I haven't 100%ed this game, I've pretty much gone through all the substantial content. I've already beat the game and am about to get the true ending now that I've got all the memories. I can honestly say to me this is one of the all time great games, in fact a lot of its criticisms like weapon durability and rain weren't problems for me at all. I always used my horse and followed the roads and the game progressed much more naturally then if you just climb everywhere. In fact I only upgraded my stamina once or twice, I just didn't find a use for it.

One thing that really went under the radar with this game: the writing. Oh man, the writing is so good, the jokes are really funny and witty and the dialogue is a lot better than people give it credit for. It really flew under the radar in all the reviews I saw.

 

[Soldier13Fox]

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

While I haven't 100%ed this game, I've pretty much gone through all the substantial content. I've already beat the game and am about to get the true ending now that I've got all the memories. I can honestly say to me this is one of the all time great games, in fact a lot of its criticisms like weapon durability and rain weren't problems for me at all. I always used my horse and followed the roads and the game progressed much more naturally then if you just climb everywhere. In fact I only upgraded my stamina once or twice, I just didn't find a use for it.

One thing that really went under the radar with this game: the writing. Oh man, the writing is so good, the jokes are really funny and witty and the dialogue is a lot better than people give it credit for. It really flew under the radar in all the reviews I saw.

I hate that I bounced off that game so hard, I bought a Switch basically with the sole purpose of playing this game. But it just didn't do anything for me.

 

[Shareefruck]

I hate that I bounced off that game so hard, I bought a Switch basically with the sole purpose of playing this game. But it just didn't do anything for me.

Yeah, I had a similar experience.

 

[aleshemsky83]

I hate that I bounced off that game so hard, I bought a Switch basically with the sole purpose of playing this game. But it just didn't do anything for me.

Yeah, I had a similar experience.

I think what can help some people's enjoyment is that they not climb. Some people love it like that but I played just climbing everything the first couple times and didn't really get into it.

However, if you actually use your horse and follow the roads, the game plays much more like a linear story focused Zelda game, and you run into far more story based events and see a lot of really good dialogue. The content at the villages and stables is really good and you can always keep your arrows stocked. And on another plus side, you don't need to upgrade stamina so you don't need to do that many shrines and can stick to the main story. I upgraded stamina twice my entire playthrough.

Most people just climb climb climb, I didn't do that and enjoyed the game a lot more. You can actually get a lot more places than you think with your horse, the devs took pretty good care to make sure of that. Sometimes you might need to find a brigde to cross a river but considering horses are 3-4 times faster than running it's not the biggest deal.

 

[93LEAFS]

Due to the lockdown measures implemented in March, and stricter restrictions implemented in late November here, I've gamed more over the past year than I have since I was a kid (in my early 30's now). Outside of RDR2 I really didn't play many of the big AAA titles over the past few years, and I've had a hell of a time catching up. So, the last 2 games I've beat are.

God of War: 10/10. Absolutely incredible game. After getting it at a significant sale price, I'll gladly be forking over the full price for the upcoming sequel at launch (If I can find a PS5 by then). Great story, challenging game with a bunch to do even after beating it. Played it on Hard and it was very challenging even when maxed out in Armour and Axe when trying to take down the Valkrie's.

Horizon: Zero Dawn: 9/10. Great game and a huge open world. My biggest complaints would be I didn't really like the mapping at times, and it could be frustrating finding the climbing markers. Great game, and like I said about God of War, I bought this for 9.99 off of Amazon.ca during Black Friday sales, I will be gladly paying the 79.99 or whatever it is when they release Horizon: Forbidden West.

Beat this early in the pandemic, but I will say that Spiderman was probably my favorite game I picked up this year and remains the only game which I've platinumed. Outside of wanting a 4K DVD player, I was in no rush to get a PS5, but Spiderman: Miles Morales has me trying to get one every time I see a stock update (and then the consistent disappointment of losing to the bots).

Disappointed to see some of the reviews on Control. I bought it for like 25 bucks a couple of weeks ago, and we debating starting it up next (I also bought Sekiro, Assassins Creed: Odyssey, and Nioh 1 at sizable discounts which are the other options).

 

[syz]

I think what can help some people's enjoyment is that they not climb. Some people love it like that but I played just climbing everything the first couple times and didn't really get into it.

However, if you actually use your horse and follow the roads, the game plays much more like a linear story focused Zelda game, and you run into far more story based events and see a lot of really good dialogue. The content at the villages and stables is really good and you can always keep your arrows stocked. And on another plus side, you don't need to upgrade stamina so you don't need to do that many shrines and can stick to the main story. I upgraded stamina twice my entire playthrough.

Most people just climb climb climb, I didn't do that and enjoyed the game a lot more. You can actually get a lot more places than you think with your horse, the devs took pretty good care to make sure of that. Sometimes you might need to find a brigde to cross a river but considering horses are 3-4 times faster than running it's not the biggest deal.

Eh, the problems are bigger than that. The mechanical side of exploring the world is fine, it's just that there's nothing interesting to do in it. The dungeons are sparse and are replaced by a whole bunch of mostly uninteresting shrines. Plus the combat is universally unrewarding; mechanically it's bare bones, and all you really gain by doing it most of the time is some broken weapons.

Playing Genshin Impact helped put BotW into perspective more. I think that game does everything better, aside from the fact that it's a gacha game.

 

[Ceremony]

​

BioShock Remastered (PS4, 2016 - originally PS3, 2008)

I'm going to be honest with you. I've been thinking about how to write up BioShock Remastered for a while since I finished it and I have nothing. It's my favourite game ever and even before I finished it the entire thing was so familiar to me no details were standing out that I could make a point of. As far as I can tell I've played this game three times in my life - 2008 when it came out for PS3, 2013 when I went back to it before Infinite came out, and 2015 when I finally went back and finished all the trophies. Just like when I played Heavy Rain earlier this year, it was all so engaging that every detail of it felt so fresh and clear in my mind it felt like I'd been playing it constantly on repeat since 2008.

With that in mind I don't know where to start. It's such a revered and well-known game that I feel like anyone reading this will be aware of the premise even if they've managed to never play it. BioShock is a first person shooter where you play as Jack (I still don't know where this name is revealed - I probably should). Jack's on a plane somewhere above the Atlantic Ocean. It crashes and he survives to discover he's right next to a lighthouse. He enters the lighthouse and discovers it leads to the underwater city of Rapture. Rapture was founded by Andrew Ryan following every idiot on the internet's wet dream - what if I lived in a city with no rules or regulations, where Great Men And Women were free to create anything they wanted and live in complete freedom? What follows is a philosophical, sociological and existential exploration of the player's role in relation to the player character in video games, dressed up with clunky combat mechanics and the depiction of an objectivist society in ruin.

As far as gameplay is concerned, it's pretty straightforward. You have a selection of weapons you collect and can switch between as you progress. There's more than enough ammo for all of them lying around, and if you run out there are plenty of vending machines and inventing stations where you can get more. You can also use a range of Plasmids and Tonics, genetic-altering substances created thanks to Rapture's approach to scientific advancement, to add some variety to the combat. Want to set people or the environment on fire? Electrocute them? Want to make yourself stronger, or invisible to security cameras that send the flying shooting security bots after you? The assorted combat possibilities are practically endless, and you find yourself switching between them periodically just for some variety. Headshotting people with the crossbow is by far the most fun you'll have. The one thing I'd hold against the game here is that it never really feels like a struggle. There's always more than enough ammo, money and health lying around.

There's a decent range of enemies for you to unleash all this firepower on. The most common enemies are Splicers, Rapture's ordinary citizens who through extended Plasmid use ruined their genetic makeup so badly they're completely deformed and psychotic. You go up against a range of Splicers, some with melee weapons, some with guns, some who can teleport and shoot fireballs at you. Actually killing them doesn't vary much as you work your way through the game, but the combination of their abilities and the environments mean you always have to adapt during combat.

The security systems dotted around are comprised of camera, turrets and the flying bots. You can hack these to make them work for you and target enemies, but I don't know how steam-powered turrets made out of random objects can pick out targets. On top of all of this are probably BioShock's most famous characters, the Big Daddies. I'll cover their thematic significance later, but combat against these guys is as tough as BioShock gets. Even on harder difficulties you can still take out Splicers in one or two shots, Big Daddies are sponges who will slam you into a wall and stun you even as you empty a machine gun clip into them. The thing is, for whatever preparation you put into trying to take one of these things down, you always end up frantically scrambling trying to heal yourself and get some space for another shot before you get slammed again. These encounters really make you feel vulnerable, and there's a genuine sense of satisfaction from overcoming them.

There now follows a short history of how Rapture ended up the way it did.

As mentioned, Andrew Ryan founded Rapture shortly after the Second World War to escape state interference and restraint on the surface. The suggestion is that his sanctimonious speech greets everyone who ever arrived in the city, where he complains about America and Russia and the Vatican and anyone else he thought was out to get him. It seemed Rapture was going from strength to strength until someone discovered a sea slug nearby which through experimentation allowed people to alter their DNA. The resulting substance was called Adam and through some smart people working with it Plasmids were created. Suddenly everyone could change themselves to be whatever they wanted and do whatever they wanted. Most of them ended up turning into Splicers.

Around the same time a man named Frank Fontaine was building up a powerbase to overthrow Ryan as the man in charge of Rapture. Starting with smuggling and fish importing he portrayed himself as an ordinary guy who was there for the people left behind by Rapture. The quote that always stands out from the game for me is one of his, where he says that everyone goes to Rapture dreaming of being a captain of industry, forgetting they'll still need someone to clean the toilets. As the inevitable inequalities became more and more pronounced Fontaine starts up a home for the poor and, hey, now he has an army to take on Ryan. Combine this with the plasmids that Fontaine Futuristics were putting out and hey presto, they're going head to head with Ryan Industries in a full-on civil war.

In a game environment filled with striking imagery, the most iconic characters are those Big Daddies. They follow and protect Little Sisters, young girls who are trained to go around sticking syringes into the corpses that line the streets to harvest Adam from them. The main purpose of the Little Sisters is to provide the game's moral choice system (remember 2008 when that was a thing?). After killing the Big Daddy you can either harvest the girl and get lots of Adam, or you can follow the advice of the person responsible for them, Brigid Tenenbaum, and free them. If you free all of them you actually get more Adam, but you aren't to know that if you play the game blind.

BioShock is a game which is never short of things to provoke an emotional response in the player. Tenenbaum's voice competes with others in your radio to flesh out the competing narratives about the history of Rapture and the things that happened pre and post-fall. You might marvel at the sheer scale of the city when you enter a hall or a room, then you see a woman standing over a pram singing a lullaby and crying, only to find that there's a revolver where the baby should be. Although I've said I found all of the game familiar and as such unsurprising, I can still see the people left in Rapture and the decayed society that produced them. Every area and action in the game provides some detail about the environment, and it never stops surprising you.

The art design of Rapture is a big reason for it being so memorable. Although it was pitched as freedom for all sorts of artistic development, it's telling that a city which functioned through the late 40s and most of the 50s is stuck very firmly in the Art Deco period. Still, Art Deco was quite striking as a movement so pretty much every aspect of the environment design is bold and distinctive. The Rapture-specific objects like vending machines and airlock doors fit in well with the style too. Rapture is an setting clearly inspired by a real life historical period, but it's copied and mimicked so thoroughly that it feels like a plausible organic offshoot in this alternate universe. The dated music from the same time that new citizens to Rapture would have brought with them also persists and adds to the city's ambiance. In a game filled with strengths, the environment is arguably the most evocative.

Two memories of this game stand out in my head. I'd love to write about them after having experienced them for the first time. I'd love to experience something like that in a game again, but I doubt I could. The first is the reveal of Rapture itself at the very start of the game. Seeing the city for the first time is a reveal that very little media I can think of has ever compared to. For an old game - and I'll come to the technical aspects shortly - the sheer imagery of the game's first twenty minutes or so is incomparable and still stands out even now.

The second standout moment is the game's twist. I remember reaching that point for the first time and genuinely being stunned. Playing it now and being careful to uncover every detail and search every area, of course I can see all the things that point towards the twist, but when you're young and dumb you're just swept up in the excitement of it all and miss everything. Going back to it older and wiser I can properly appreciate all of the detail and I'm objectively impressed by it. A lot of work went into imparting the history of Rapture and its citizens on the player as you progress and none of it is wasted. Whether it concerns a main character's work on something plot specific or ordinary day to day life, everything you find out adds to the development of the city.

With this in mind, there is an argument that BioShock struggles in its character development. The game leans very heavily on telling rather than showing. Most of the history you uncover is oral, with people conveniently leaving tape recorders around telling you all the important things that happened and that they just happened to be talking about at the time. Every important detail about the city and the things and people in it are all captured. It can be a bit wearing listening to this much dialogue, as well as stressful at the thought of missing one of them and missing out on a bit of crucial information. When you add this to Ryan, Tenenbaum and Fontaine who are all on your radio telling you how great they are, it's a lot to take in at times. I'm not sure how else all this detail could have been presented to the player - and to be clear, none of it is wasted. All of it is interesting - but there are times where it feels like a chore that you have to go along with as well as just playing the game.
I was surprised when I played BioShock Remastered. I expected a more technically sound game than this. The game does feel dated in some areas. While Splicer character design varies throughout the game's locations, you'll find them often repeating the same lines of dialogue as they walk around. I feel like I heard at least five haughty women complain about the priest at their daughter's wedding before I attacked them. This isn't a problem caused by the remastering though, just an observation. The sound is probably the remaster's biggest problem, with some bits of dialogue sticking and the sound of cameras where there are none. Rather than a remastering it feels like a straight port of the original that wasn't even done perfectly, so that's a bit disappointing.

The remaster does feature an interactive look at some assets created in the game's development. I'm a big fan of this rather than a stationary artbook. I love the game so if there's a chance to see some additional artwork I'm all over that. It also helps show you how well-rounded the game's characters are, as Splicers were originally so warped and inhuman they wouldn't have felt relatable at all. There's also over an hour and a half of director's commentary with Ken Levine and Shawn Robertson included in the game, which is also on YouTube:



Rather than this just being viewable or being unlocked after you finish, you need to find film reels in levels to see this stuff in-game. This is stupid, and makes me want to explore less. All in all, the port from PS3 to PS4 is functional. It didn't crash and everything that was supposed to be there was.

After all of the words I've written here I've realised why I struggled to start this write-up for so long. The game is so familiar to me that I have no emotional reaction to any of it anymore. I can appreciate its quality and recognise all of the detail that makes it so great, but none of it shocks or surprises me anymore. The Little Sisters are a fantastic combination of creepy and vulnerable, but I don't feel the protectiveness you're supposed to feel. I recognise that it's there, but that's all. There were a few scenes this time that I wasn't expecting that struck me. Going into an apartment and seeing two adults covered in blood with a gun next to them and three small girls opposite them with some pills scattered around, that was horrible. But these moments were few and far between. This isn't a criticism of the game, it's an admission that I don't feel like I can assess it fairly because I know it so well.

With that in mind, each separate area you explore is extremely well-made and distinctive. In that director's commentary I linked earlier Ken Levine says that they wanted to make a small, detailed world rather than a large one for the sake of it being large. If only more games nowadays followed that advice. Still, this approach definitely works. Functionally and even aesthetically there's not much difference between areas, but they still feel vivid and unique. There's usually a boss to take down in each of them and this allows the game to explore the different ways in which Rapture functioned and subsequently collapsed. My favourite section of the game will always be heading to Fort Frolic, the arts and leisure section run by the insane Sander Cohen and his former proteges who all want to kill him. Despite the scientific possibilities that Adam imparted on the rest of Rapture's society, I don't think they embody Rapture as well as Cohen's lunacy. While there are several well-developed secondary and tertiary characters throughout the game, Cohen is the one I remember most. Ironically I suppose it's because he's the only hands-off one of the bunch. He talks to you and directs you like everyone else does, but you don't have to interact with him directly. This affords him a sinister air that nobody else in the game has, which is what I think makes him so memorable.

The game's original Challenge Rooms DLC is still here too. You have three different scenarios where you have to save a Little Sister. Two of them feature limited combat options. These are nice as they force you to think differently about your weapons. The third is a straightforward blast through anything that moves. The DLC won't take long even if you finish all the timed challenges, but it's something distinct enough from the main game to feel worthwhile and memorable in its own right.

Although I've said the game doesn't provoke an emotional response in me anymore because of how familiar I am with it, I need to talk some more about the twist and what it means for the role of the player in a video game. Part of the reason the Games Are Art argument exists is the level of interactive immersion that games offer that other art forms don't. No matter how good a film or book is, no matter how it makes you feel, you're a passive observer of what's going on. In a game, you aren't. To me the problem with games has always been the objective driven nature of them. In order to experience the whole story of a game you need to fulfil whatever criteria is required to progress from one area to the next. Despite providing you with the illusion of free will and free control over the player character, you're still constrained by whatever it's physically possible to do. The task-driven nature of objective completion will usually restrict, at at least distract from, a genuine emotional immersion into a world and story in the way a film or a book won't.

If you've played the game, you know what's coming. I've only ever played two games that properly examine and subvert this trope - BioShock and Spec Ops: The Line. Both of these games do the same thing. Your character is forced into doing something without their knowledge of how or why, only for the reality of their situation to be exposed later on. This calls into question the very notion of objectives in games as a means of narrative delivery. Would you, the player, do the things Jack does in BioShock if you weren't instructed to? What about the other millions of people who have ever played it? There are two ways of looking at this, either as a positive or a negative. As a negative it's arguable that games can never be comparable to other narrative platforms because their very nature makes the story-telling procedural. Is this negative, or am I just conditioned to assume it is? As a positive, games like BioShock that expose and subvert this do so so skilfully that it feels like a work of such genius that nothing will ever compare to it. Since I can only mention one other game in this vein, I think video game writing and creation has a bit of a way to go before this becomes common. If it ever can.

Of course, by this point you could diverge into any number of commentaries about the games industry and why games like BioShock - even something rudimentary and universal in terms of its gameplay - are so rare. Just wait for the paragraphs I'll write about Infinite's cover design. I suppose video games will need to find their own way to make memorable works of art with emotional and intellectual depth and complexity. But that's another conversation.

Whenever you play things from your youth there's always a possibility that it won't be as good as you remember. If I'm being completely honest there are times where BioShock Remastered felt a bit flat, but I think I'd attribute that to my own familiarity with it rather than the game itself. I could still comfortably name this as my favourite game ever, and would happily recommend it as one of the best ever to anyone who'd listen. I hope that in whatever shape gaming takes over the coming years that people are able to play this and overcome whatever generational differences it might contain. If I were to sum up why I hope this, I'd quote Sander Cohen: "When I am dust, this is what they'll point to."

PS My love for this game made me read Atlas Shrugged when I was 19. You're all lucky I'm as well-adjusted as I am.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

El Hijo - A Wild West Story - 7.5/10

El Hijo is a casual isometric stealth game. You play a child trying to rescue his mother from bandits. The story's pretty basic with a pretty nice art style. The game play is fun with several ways to sneak past guards. It's not that challenging but it's still fun nevertheless. If you're looking for a simpler or more casual stealth game, definitely give it a go. It's some good fun.

 

[aleshemsky83]

The Surge 2

Spoilers for the story.

You know, as much as I liked the combat more that the first game, I felt like it got so much more wrong. It wasn't quite Code Vein level (I can't imagine anything coming close), but so many of the area were just confusing same looking mazes, the NPC sidequests were so much more out of the way than the original Surge, and the story while it was a direct sequel just felt so much worse. Also, this game is full of loading screens while the original had almost none. The NPC sidequests were almost the biggest for me. In the original it was just a nice thing you did in the natural progression of the main game. In the sequel they're a complete chore with minimal reward.

The main antagonist Eli has this awful cheap character model and his "backstab" in the early game honestly made me think he was a self-aware charicature of the obvious doublecross schemer. I honestly thought he was an early game antagonist that would get pushed aside, but no, he's the main villain and his arc is just as cartoonish all the way to the end, even ending in the "I learned my lesson, I was wrong this whole time" conclusion

On the plus side, I figured out a completely broken build in the mid game so I was able to breeze to the end.

 

[No Fun Shogun]

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity - 8/10

Just a fun time sink. Nothing really dazzles, but a good hack and slash with greatly improved combat mechanics and much more diverse play styles and options from the original Hyrule Warriors. Music is great and the plot was a fun, albeit still kind of fanfiction-y (though not as blatantly bad as the original's again), romp.

Can't complain. Put over 40 hours into it and, like BotW, I did everything except collect all the Korok seeds. Pretty satiated and putting it down, will probably return if/when there's DLC.

 

[Section337]

Saints Row 3 Remaster - 7.25 out of 10

Had played the game when it originally came out and enjoyed it quite a bit more when I first played it. Which is not surprising, since I have heard the jokes before, I am not going to laugh as hard. That said, I kind of knew I needed a goofy, fun game and this fit the bill. In fact, one of the things that maybe made the game feel somewhat lesser is the inclusion of a tank at the beginning of the game. The overpowered towards end game reward, which I loved so much, trivialized things a bit too much at the beginning and I knew it at the time. Also found myself missing the ability to superpower my way around the city. Cars and bikes seemed old hat.

The Outer Worlds - 5.5 out of 10

I thought this would be in my wheelhouse but found myself left with an "is this it" feeling. Is this small group of different enemies all I am going to fight? Are the bad guys really this incompetent? Am I really expected to believe in this ally? Is that all that I see when I look out this window? Do I care about anybody in this game? Found myself forcing the way to an end to see if there was something. I guess there was an interesting concept around what was happening, but it wasn't earned.

 

[PK Cronin]

I just finished my first playthrough of Resident Evil 7 (on normal, just unlocked Madhouse).

I'd played the crap out of the RE2 remake and Re3 remake, then I played this one. It wasn't quite as smooth as the remakes, but they did a great job overall. Not having any zombies had me concerned for a series that centers around zombies. They did an excellent job with creating stress and tension in slightly different ways than the previous games. At times I felt like they were using experienced Resident Evil player's expectations against them and that was really refreshing.

The story was a little bit of a mess at times, but I expect some of that to be cleared up in RE8. A little more variety in the types of enemies would've been good. Though, their ability to just appear helped make up for that lack of variety. Lastly, I'd say the game was a little too easy (I did play on normal though). In most survival horror games players are supposed to make tough choices about when to fight or use certain items. That just didn't happen for me much at all. The hardest part was prior to the final fight(s), I had too many items that the stress wasn't from insufficient supplies but because of limited space with an overabundance of them.

I'll give it another playthrough on Madhouse and see how much different it is, but overall it was still a fun game.

8/10 from me.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Ryse: Son of Rome - 8/10

I know Ryse: Son of Rome had mixed reviews when it came out because it was short and really linear. I went in well aware of that. The combat's not very challenging but it works. It reminds me very much of the Batman Arkham games minus the gadgets. There are two attack buttons (sword or shield) and there are two defense buttons (parry or dodge.) It works, it's al really fluid. It's just good in my opinion. Not great but certainly not bad or anything. The story was pretty enjoyable and I particularly like how they finished it. It was a pretty creative touch.

The crazy thing about this game is it came out in 2013 and it doesn't look like it at all. It looks better than most games released today, a whole 7 years later. In fact, I would go so far as to say if you take one of the best looking games out today and just shut off ray tracing, Ryse: Son of Rome will look as good as it. It's impressive just how good this game looks. And beyond just graphical fidelity, the animations are absolutely top notch. You can execute enemies after you deal enough damage to finish them off. The animations were so fluid here. If you play other games like this, enemies are constantly clipping through walls, elevated on higher terrain, they snap into position to complete the animation, etc and it all looks wonky. It was incredibly rare that anything looked out of place in any animations.

Overall, it's a treat just to watch. It's short, I finished it in about 5 hours. The gameplay's enjoyable. I can understand why people hated this at the full asking price when it was an XBox One launch title but years later when you can pick it up for just a few dollars, it's definitely worth the playthrough.

 

[Osprey]

The crazy thing about this game is it came out in 2013 and it doesn't look like it at all. It looks better than most games released today, a whole 7 years later. In fact, I would go so far as to say if you take one of the best looking games out today and just shut off ray tracing, Ryse: Son of Rome will look as good as it. It's impressive just how good this game looks.

I looked it up, noticed that it was developed by Crytek and said to myself, "that's why." A few months ago, I played Crysis 2, which I think uses the same version of CryEngine as Ryse, and was stunned at how good the game looks for being almost a decade old, so I know exactly how you feel. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised, though, that game developers who use their own in-house engines tend to get the most out of them, since we've seen that with id with idTech, Epic with UnrealEngine and Crytek with previous versions of CryEngine..

 

[aleshemsky83]

Ninja Gaiden 2 Sigma

So as Ive said in a few other threads. I played this over streaming and man I can't believe how sold I am on streaming after this. With a wired connection, the input lag was completely playable start to finish with zero hiccups. Its probably going to be my new way to play PS3 games I missed.

Let me get out of the way. Yes Im aware this is version is inferior to the 360 version, but I still got hooked.

So I played on Acolyte difficulty. Which if I understand is identical to warrior (hard/normal) difficulty just the items are way cheaper. Can confirm this having played through the first chapter on both diffiiculties

Now onto the actual game. Its really good, but I lean towards the first one being the best, with the third honestly bordering on being a bad game because of the terrible boss fights. Sigma 2 has some pretty bad bosses too with a bunch of God of War style boss battles sprinkled in (though you just spam arrows at a lot of these they're insanely easy), but the actual main greater fiend boss battles are really good. And I love the ninja mobs theyre a ton of fun, though I tend to agree that the gore being removed is a really big missing ingredient. I'll say theres just something special about the story and the cutscenes. Its nothing to write home about but theres just something special to it, almost timeless.

The secret to a lot of the combat is to get a grasp of one shot kills that are implemented into the systems and I think its why a lot of people struggled with these games. By performing the izuna drop, by charging the strong attack for an ultimate, and by pressing strong strong attack near a delimbed opponent, you can get one shot kills and make quick work of even powerful mobs.

Ultimately, NG1 is probably the best followed by Ninja Gaiden 2, then Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, the Ninja Gaiden 3 wayyy down the list.

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

Ninja Gaiden 2 Sigma

So as Ive said in a few other threads. I played this over streaming and man I can't believe how sold I am on streaming after this. With a wired connection, the input lag was completely playable start to finish with zero hiccups. Its probably going to be my new way to play PS3 games I missed.

Let me get out of the way. Yes Im aware this is version is inferior to the 360 version, but I still got hooked.

So I played on Acolyte difficulty. Which if I understand is identical to warrior (hard/normal) difficulty just the items are way cheaper. Can confirm this having played through the first chapter on both diffiiculties

Now onto the actual game. Its really good, but I lean towards the first one being the best, with the third honestly bordering on being a bad game because of the terrible boss fights. Sigma 2 has some pretty bad bosses too with a bunch of God of War style boss battles sprinkled in (though you just spam arrows at a lot of these they're insanely easy), but the actual main greater fiend boss battles are really good. And I love the ninja mobs theyre a ton of fun, though I tend to agree that the gore being removed is a really big missing ingredient. I'll say theres just something special about the story and the cutscenes. Its nothing to write home about but theres just something special to it, almost timeless.

The secret to a lot of the combat is to get a grasp of one shot kills that are implemented into the systems and I think its why a lot of people struggled with these games. By performing the izuna drop, by charging the strong attack for an ultimate, and by pressing strong strong attack near a delimbed opponent, you can get one shot kills and make quick work of even powerful mobs.

Ultimately, NG1 is probably the best followed by Ninja Gaiden 2, then Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, the Ninja Gaiden 3 wayyy down the list.

This brings back a lot of nostalgia. Agreed with your assessment - I've only played Ninja Gaiden Black and Ninja Gaiden 2 on the 360, and I much preferred the first one. Boss fights, environments, story, weapons, etc. everything seems better in the first one.

 

[Ceremony]

​

BioShock 2 Remastered (PS4, 2016 - originally PS3, 2010)

Sequels are an interesting concept. You either have a pre-planned story which is divided into parts for reasons of brevity or financial opportunism or you have... well, something original based on financial opportunism. The strength of a sequel depends on several factors. It has to stand on its own merits - its characters, setting, themes, the events depicted within - while still being compared to the original. Cliched a comparison as it is to make, while The Godfather 2 expanded upon a well-regarded classic blending both new and old information seamlessly into the original's world, The Godfather 3... didn't. For fans of original works sequels can be a daunting prospect. It can be more of what they like while offering nothing groundbreaking, it can be expansive and a genuinely welcome addition to their appreciation of the original work or it can be an insulting attempt to profit from something original and memorable. Sequels themselves are not a malicious concept, but their execution can take in a wide range of quality for a wide range of reasons.

Here we have BioShock 2, a game named after BioShock with a 2 on the end of it. BioShock was an original concept from an independent developer who had produced at least one critically acclaimed game that didn't sell. BioShock 2 was made by a different developer but the same publisher, and came two years after the original. While several assets such as character models and objects could be transferred easily enough, that's still a quick turnaround considering how distinctive and memorable the first BioShock was.

Set ten years after BioShock which was set ten years after a civil war which tore the underwater city of Rapture to pieces, you play as Subject Delta, one of the first Big Daddies from when the program was first created. Since the death of its founder Andrew Ryan and his biggest rival Frank Fontaine in the last game, Rapture has been taken over by Sofia Lamb. Dr. Lamb is a psychologist who exists as a complete polar opposite to Ryan. Where he founded Rapture on a basis of objectivism and personal achievement through self-interest, Lamb has repurposed Rapture's PA system to broadcast messages of redemption, unity and strength through co-operation. Unless any of the splicers she commands finds Subject Delta, then they're to shoot on sight. As you progress through what's left of Rapture you have to try and find Lamb's daughter, Eleanor, who was Delta's original bonded Little Sister.

BioShock 2 is a thematically challenging game. If you were able to absorb the concept of Rapture in the first game, that's fine. Building a city at the bottom of the ocean in the late forties was ludicrous enough, the fact it developed into genetically modified lunatics killing each other just sort of went along with that. To think though that the city itself could still be there ten years later? That people could still be alive, never mind trying to forge some kind of new existence in and beyond it? If you look at it in isolation it's no more ridiculous than the original premise, but even the measures you see taken to repair Rapture seem like they'd be inconsequential. A Big Daddy on the ocean floor firing some rivets into a leaking window doesn't make me think a city of Rapture's apparent scale can be maintained. Not when there are only six people in the city who are still coherent and not spliced beyond humanity.

The other difficulty with BioShock 2 is the amount of detail featured here that wasn't in the original game. I understand why, and this isn't a criticism of the characters or locations themselves, but there's an incongruousness to the timeline. How can I be listening to audio diaries suggesting Lamb and Ryan were having public debates about political theory when Rapture was created? They weren't. The same goes for Gil Alexander, a prominent character in this game who was involved in the Big Daddy/Little Sister program. Rapture is a big place and it's nice to get some sort of depth to locations, people and events beyond what there was in the first game, but there's a lot here that feels like it's bordering on fan fiction. Parts of the game's writing feel like it's trying too hard to be reverent to the first game rather than just accompanying it, and it suffers for it on occasion.

That isn't to say the game doesn't do things well. Aside from Lamb who there's just far too much of (and who is much more ideologically insistent than Ryan ever was) the new characters are all sympathetic and believable. There are some areas where it feels like an area was conceived and built before a narratively worthwhile character was created, but for the most part the characters are a strength. That said, they brought back Dr. Tenenbaum, mother to the Little Sisters amid the suggestion that children are being stolen from the surface to be turned into Little Sisters. This feels like it's pretty significant, but it just happens at the start of the game and then it's forgotten about. This is why the game starts to feel like it was made by fans of BioShock first and game developers second. There's so much content and concept put in that not all of it is ever going to be explored properly. As a result there are times where game ends up feeling overwhelming more than anything else, with little time to properly reflect on what you see the way you could in the original game.

There are two parts of the game I'll single out for praise. The audio diaries are back, and one series in particular focuses on the story of Mark Meltzer, someone who arrived in Rapture after his daughter was taken. He searched the city for her, found her, found she'd been turned into a Little Sister and was turned into a Big Daddy to look after her. This was a strength of the original BioShock, little snippets of its secondary and tertiary characters that give a bit of depth to your surroundings. The horrifying nature of this story is the sort of base humanity BioShock was built on, and it works well here. The second part of the game that needs praise comes near the end where you play from the perspective of a Little Sister. Even the idea that their minds are so altered they don't see Rapture as it is wouldn't have occurred to me, so being able to see a beautified skin over the environment is exactly the right kind of disturbing that Rapture should be. A big congratulations to whoever thought of that segment.

After watching the director's commentary for the first game I discovered that the moral choice system there wasn't a decision made by Ken Levine or any of the development team who worked on the game - it was the publishers who really pushed for it. As a result the 'good' ending is much more reasonable and plausible while the other endings are a bit silly. BioShock 2 presents more opportunities and more reasons for you to consider your own morals and make choices that influence the end cutscene. Again, whether it's familiarity with the game or with games in particular I don't know, but I don't see any logical or impulsive reason to take the bad options. I think BioShock games are interesting because they constantly present challenging notions of morality and human existence, yet when the player is given agency to participate in that the outcomes are so blunt in comparison. Not all of the characters in the game are purely good or purely evil. If the player is questioning that throughout their time with the game, how can you force them into a situation which doesn't make sense? Is this a BioShock problem, or a video game problem? I know I'm likely to make excuses for BioShock (1 and Infinite moreso than 2) given how much I think of the games, but I think there's something lacking here. I suppose there is a valid reason for Delta and Eleanor to take the bad path, but as a player there's not as much incentive for me to do it.

Since you're playing as a Big Daddy you might imagine the firepower available to the player would be improved from the first game. You'd be right. You can now fire guns and plasmids at the same time. You can also upgrade and even combine plasmids to be much more creatively deadly. I tried quite hard to judge fairly whether or not this as scaled properly as the game went on from a difficulty perspective, and I think it is. I'm aware of my vulnerability, but I can still brute force any challenge that faces me. Good combination.

There are two DLCs to go along with BioShock 2. Up first are the Protector Trials. You have a corpse and a Little Sister you need to protect. You get a score based on how well she does, and she does better when she isn't interrupted. You have a limit on the weapons and plasmids you can use. Since I've just praised the gameplay you'd think I'd enjoy this and yes, yes I did. None of them were especially hard, but there was some nice creativity enforced on you with the combinations of things you had to use. Usually in games that offer a range of weapons like this you find one you like and ignore everything else, but having to use all of them really drives home how well done each weapon and plasmid is.

The second DLC is the very well-regarded Minerva's Den. All prospect of plausibility is thrown completely by the wayside here as it turns out Rapture has a supercomputer. It's so powerful it can predict everything! It's even better than Adam for any prospective maniac who wants to flee the city and take over the planet! There's a humanity in Minerva's Den which can feel a bit over-done in the main game. It's quite short, the ending has a nice twist which I either worked out or remembered before I reached it on this occasion, and it's more BioShock in the same way that the base game is. I don't know what else to say.

Technically, this remastering seems to be better than BioShock's. I didn't have any of the strange sound glitches from the first game. I even put the PS3 version on and I was genuinely stunned at how bad the textures looked. I'm a big fan of defending the graphics of old games as not being important in terms of being able to enjoy them nowadays but this was genuinely grim. You'll have seen the Cyberpunk 2077 bugs with characters' faces not rendering properly, the whole thing looks like that. And the framerate, good lord. I spent years not understanding the 30 vs. 60 fps argument. I get it now. Give me maximum frame rate, every time. When I had the game on I got to discover than ten and a half years later the multiplayer for this game is still active and populated. I enjoyed that when I played it. I'd consider that mode in the same sense I would the DLC - a fun aside that adds a bit of depth to the setting without being a proper necessary focus.

I remember how excited I was for this game when it came out. I got the Special Edition and everything. Big fancy box with the butterfly motif that Lamb's followers spread throughout Rapture. Exclusive art book that shows the background for pretty much every character model in the game and lots of the location design histories too. BioShock 2 soundtrack on CD and original BioShock soundtrack on vinyl. Three posters too. I remember how disappointed I was when I saw them and they weren't ones from the original game. Still, all that plus the game for 70 money isn't something you'd get anywhere near today. I didn't like the game at first, but I was probably too young and naive for expecting anything comparable to the original BioShock. When I played it again before Infinite's release in 2013 I enjoyed it a lot more and, now, I can judge it on its own merits and with more maturity and reason (I hope). It's not a bad game. I personally am always going to struggle to objectively analyse something like this given how much esteem I hold BioShock and Infinite in. I can recognise 2's strengths and flaws and excuse if not justify them. I don't think anyone could have made a BioShock 2 that lived up to the original BioShock, but then I suppose that's the trouble with sequels.

 

[x Tame Impala]

Ryse: Son of Rome - 8/10

I know Ryse: Son of Rome had mixed reviews when it came out because it was short and really linear. I went in well aware of that. The combat's not very challenging but it works. It reminds me very much of the Batman Arkham games minus the gadgets. There are two attack buttons (sword or shield) and there are two defense buttons (parry or dodge.) It works, it's al really fluid. It's just good in my opinion. Not great but certainly not bad or anything. The story was pretty enjoyable and I particularly like how they finished it. It was a pretty creative touch.

The crazy thing about this game is it came out in 2013 and it doesn't look like it at all. It looks better than most games released today, a whole 7 years later. In fact, I would go so far as to say if you take one of the best looking games out today and just shut off ray tracing, Ryse: Son of Rome will look as good as it. It's impressive just how good this game looks. And beyond just graphical fidelity, the animations are absolutely top notch. You can execute enemies after you deal enough damage to finish them off. The animations were so fluid here. If you play other games like this, enemies are constantly clipping through walls, elevated on higher terrain, they snap into position to complete the animation, etc and it all looks wonky. It was incredibly rare that anything looked out of place in any animations.

Overall, it's a treat just to watch. It's short, I finished it in about 5 hours. The gameplay's enjoyable. I can understand why people hated this at the full asking price when it was an XBox One launch title but years later when you can pick it up for just a few dollars, it's definitely worth the playthrough.

I loved this game. The aesthetic was so unique and intense. It was very linear but you felt like you were in an action movie playing a Roman defending his city.

 

[Osprey]

I've been playing Dishonored for the first time and just finished it, including all of the DLCs. I was a really big fan of the first three Thief games, so I've always been really keen on playing it, but just didn't get around to it for one reason or another. I should've sooner than this because it really is a spiritual successor to Thief. It even has similar maps and cutscenes with voiceovers that had a nostalgic throwback quality to them. I did really miss some of Thief's features, like its visibility gem for hiding in the shadows (in Dishonored, detection is all about line of sight and distance) and extinguishing candles with arrows to create darkness, but it does add a lot of nice features, particularly the great mantling and ability to access rooftops. I also liked its slightly BioShock-like art style.

I wasn't keen on the superpowers so I mostly didn't put my points into them or use them if I didn't have to. In fact, I never once used a mana elixir because I barely touched my mana. I also barely used many of the items that I found, like the various mines. I played through the whole game on Elite difficulty using little more than bullets, a few kinds of bolts and an odd grenade here and there. I liked that that was possible and that there are several ways to play. I could do another run-through and make it rather different by employing all of the superpowers and weapons that I didn't touch the first time.

Anyways, I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to playing the two follow-up games at some point. Hopefully, we get a next-gen Dishonored sequel eventually. Imagine one that uses ray tracing to accurately simulate shadows and player visibility.