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Post by snackplissken on Jan 12, 2022 9:59:04 GMT
I am shocked that Ori and the Blind Forest and Psychonauts getting sullied on one page.
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EMarkM
Junior Member
Well, quite...
Posts: 2,149
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Post by EMarkM on Jan 12, 2022 10:08:25 GMT
I am shocked that Ori and the Blind Forest and Psychonauts getting sullied on one page. I’ve not played either yet. With my current methodology, I’ll probably wait until they appear as Game Pass Quests. Can’t believe how many points I must have missed last year, not looking into these!
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Post by ToomuchFluffy on Jan 12, 2022 10:11:41 GMT
Siege of Centauri (Tower Defense) is kind of finished. At least I played it enough to consider it "completed". Maybe half of the campaign, but since I had no interest in the story or the uninteresting scenarios, I did eventually just switch to Endless Mode and after some hours just started rushing more and more waves because I was getting rather bored with the unending, partially extremely beefy, but unthreatening enemies and the extremely bad performance to go along with this. There were a lot of things happening on screen of course with huge waves of enemies and correspondingly a lot of projectiles, explosions etc., but I had already turned down my settings quite significantly. However, I'm not even sure how much the bad performance matters in the end. Campaign missions were all too short to do much upgrading and Endless Mode was at the extreme opposite end of the spectrum.
It seems a bit of a mess. Not as easily readable as some other games in the genre and towers can basically be put anywhere on relatively large maps, so shorter range turrets are mostly not much good since they can't cover much and the masses of enemies also mean that single-target turrets are only good when they have a lot of range and damage versus the big ones. I don't know, something about it feels off.
Other than that, I did also stop playing Shadowrun Returns pretty much where I had intended to stop. I had already played through it a while back, but essentially only liked the first half, so that is what I replayed. Only about six hours.
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torb
New Member
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Post by torb on Jan 12, 2022 10:34:16 GMT
Compared to this, Returnal and Sekiro are relaxing. Somehow makes me want to give Returnal and Sekiro a go I found the first Ori to be "fine" difficulty, don't remember if I played on easy. Except the chase sequence, that was rough. The second Ori the bosses were just too fkin hard (spider!)
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Post by theguy on Jan 12, 2022 10:47:50 GMT
@spookyxelectric I'm on PS. Did play 1 on PC mind, but probably couldn't run Psychonauts 2 very well on this. erekose Same I reckon. It's funny to look back, I'm not sure what age rating this got but there are some interesting themes here. Kids joking about suicide, some choice words like ass (I'm sure I heard a "ho" too) and of course the secret haunted room. Wonder if they keep some of that edginess in the sequel. snackplissken Hey, I hardly sullied Psychonauts!
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Post by harrypalmer on Jan 12, 2022 14:27:08 GMT
Compared to this, Returnal and Sekiro are relaxing. Somehow makes me want to give Returnal and Sekiro a go I found the first Ori to be "fine" difficulty, don't remember if I played on easy. Except the chase sequence, that was rough. The second Ori the bosses were just too fkin hard (spider!) There are at least 4 chase sequences, all of them rough! It's clearly a great game I just didnt like the way it made me feel! I'm not a huge fan when a game kills you unfairly and I feel like this does it constantly through the entire campaign, where you just have to repeat sections over and over until you nail it. To be fair I was largely playing in handheld mode and whenever I switched to controller it felt much easier, so yeah maybe it was self inflicted! Hearing the sequel is even harder means I wont be getting that unless its in a deep deep sale (which this was).
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torb
New Member
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Post by torb on Jan 12, 2022 14:30:54 GMT
There are at least 4 chase sequences, all of them rough! Haha, it has been a while! I remember I was close to just putting the game away on at least one of them.
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Post by Aunt Alison on Jan 12, 2022 14:36:20 GMT
The escape sequences were pretty bad. I think Ori seems like a game where they had an idea of how they wanted to present it first and the actual gameplay came second. Hence the poor combat and enemies. The escape sequences are a good example of that- they're clearly suppose to be these exciting, slick moments but you just keep dying over and over so there's zero tension. The music just keeps on playing as if this isn't happening though which is completely at odds with what's happening on screen. They're envisioned as a perfectly run sequence and aren't tuned for gameplay
It also hits you over the head with "you will love this poor fox rabbit thing" right at the start, which is what I meant when I said it tries too hard. I cared about the little Hollow Knight guy but that happened over time and it was already a great game regardless
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Post by RadicalRex on Jan 12, 2022 15:21:52 GMT
Skyrim (PC, original version)
Still holding up well. Nasty big polygons show the age of the game, but what they did with the limited resources is impressive, it still manages to remain a beautiful game for the most part. Atmosphere is great too, not least thanks to the great soundtrack. And I love that if I'd like something to be different, I can just change it myself with the near-limitless Creation Kit.
Went for stealth archer again, which is to me the most fun play style in this game--also probably the most overpowered one (feels like that to me and I've seen others say the same). Contrast to two-handed combat which I found awful. Fire enchantment on the bow for style, it's satisfying to send their corpses flying down in flames.
Not quite sure how to rate it, it's not as captivating anymore after 1000 hours of playtime and I know it inside out, but I guess that just shows how good it is. All things considered, 10/10 for the base game. Dawnguard: 8/10, Dragonborn: 8.5/10.
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Post by RadicalRex on Jan 12, 2022 15:27:01 GMT
As for Ori and the Blind Forest, yeah I hated the escape sequences. Or the first one at least, not long after that I abandoned the game after learning there's more of them (and also stealth sections, eurgh) and I wasn't having a lot of fun even outside of that.
I generally hate escape sequences. Can't think of any in any game ever that was any fun.
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Post by pierrepressure on Jan 12, 2022 18:22:32 GMT
The escape sections are frustrating, it's essentially a test of memory rather than skill. The art style doesn't really help with where you're supposed to go either.
And yet I'd still rate both games extremely high.
Ori and the stories are both designed to manipulate your emotions but I don't mind, I was fully invested in the experience.
Looking forward to whatever Moon studios does next.
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Tomo
Junior Member
Posts: 3,255
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Post by Tomo on Jan 12, 2022 18:32:05 GMT
Totally disagree - loved the escape sections. Thought they gave enough direction that you knew where to go first time (generally), but balanced it well enough that you had to think quickly on your feet. Also, they never really lasted more than a few minutes, so weren't exactly arduous.
Mild spoiler...
That said one of the sections in Ori 2 where you have to hide from a giant owl behind various bits of the foreground was quite irritating as the particular foreground hiding spots were pretty obscure.
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Post by deekyfun on Jan 12, 2022 20:48:43 GMT
I'm with Tomo here, I really enjoyed the thrill of the chase sections in Ori for the most part and found them less annoying for constant death and retrying than say, the bits with the big grumpy owl.
Its my favourite one of those that I've played in recent memory, and I'm really looking forward to trying the second one. And I say this as a person who can barely cope with the dexterity and muscle memory of this kind of game these days.
Also, I missed the criticism of Psychonauts and I'm not going to look back because I dont feel like crying tonight.
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Post by harrypalmer on Jan 13, 2022 10:21:56 GMT
The Innsmouth Case
It was pennies in the Nintendo sale so being a Lovecraft/Noir fan I thought I'd try it out. It's ok, although the tone didn't do it for me. It's a simple text adventure/interactive novel where you don't really have much control or insight into what your decisions mean, but this is compensated for/covered up by the humour. It's a very goofy tone which will work for some people. The aim seems to be to get as many of the wacky endings as possible, but I'd rather I had been able to solve the mystery in a satisfying way, which I don't think is even possible.
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Post by harrypalmer on Jan 13, 2022 10:31:58 GMT
Going back to Ori - I can totally see why it's highly regarded, and it may just be a personal thing, but I agree that it's not well designed in some instances. It's one of the most beautiful games I've ever played (I mean seriously it's worth the praise for the visuals alone), the music is very high quality, and the traversal generally feels good, but it's frequently very hard to see where you're supposed to go, especially under pressure, which you always are. And there were enough times where I felt the complexity of the moves required combined with the controls being a bit finicky resulted in serious frustration. I also didn't think the exploration was very satisfying, and the combat is actually quite bad. All that stuff really prevented me from caring at all about the story, which didn't help!
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2022 15:47:01 GMT
Beat Judgment last night. I enjoyed kicking the Mole's ass. He was easy though, all I had to do was bean him with chairs that were all spread all over the place . The Keihin Gang, which you fight regularly from a third of the game on, were tougher since they easily cause mortal wounds. Thought the trial would be longer, but it's like the developers thought, you don't want to watch a borinf courtroom, go punch someone! Glad it's over. Took me a bit over a month to complete and I'm ready for something light. WRC 10 and art or rally will be my cooldown games.
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Post by pierrepressure on Jan 15, 2022 16:21:47 GMT
GotG - 6/10
Kind of surprised at how well received this has been in some quarters, the gameplay isn't great with the story and characters only really elevating it above average.
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Post by RadicalRex on Jan 15, 2022 23:08:28 GMT
Supraland: Six Inches Under - 7.5/10
That was kind of disappointing. I'm a big fan of the first game, and I still liked the Crash DLC even though the world was much smaller and the action/adventure part was missing. It felt more like a pure puzzle game, a bit like being a lab rat instead of a hero on an adventure. The creator acknowledged this himself after release, so I had high expectations for this new game with the "box art" that blatantly alludes to Indiana Jones.
But it's nothing of the sort. It starts promising enough in an underground cave with lava and monsters, but it's very small and quickly you reach the town that is the central hub. From there, you access some 4 or 5 other areas, with just one monster fight to reach them, and those areas are pretty small, filled with NPCs and just a handful puzzles to solve. One of those areas is a factory or something, one's a financial district, one's a beach resort... I fail to see anything that resembles Indiana Jones. There's still no feeling of adventure at all.
And before you know it it's over, after an underwhelming easy final boss the credits rolled after 7 hours on my first playthrough. I'm pretty sure I didn't finish Crash that quickly. That's partially because even though Crash had more logical/methodical puzzles compared to the wacky outside-the-box ones of the original, it still had plenty of interesting new ideas. That's completely missing in SIU, it's all been-there-done-that without any surprises. It feels like the creator ran out of ideas for the series.
It's by no means bad, but far from stepping out of the original's and even its DLC's shadow. I'd give it an 8.5 for when it's fun, but there's -0.5 penalty for being so small and short, and another -0.5 for the massively misleading Indiana Jones theme on the "box".
For returning players, I'm not sure I can recommend it, it's too much of a lukewarm rehash. New players might like it more, but if you haven't played the original, just get that instead (it even has a demo on Steam if you're curious). I stand by my 10/10 for that one.
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Post by Samildanach on Jan 16, 2022 12:26:25 GMT
Darius Force/Super Nova (Darius Cozmic Collection Console on PS4)
The good: Nice atmosphere created by the sl muted visuals and slightly mournful soundtrack. Quite different coming from Twin's garish visuals and music. Three different routes involving 15 different levels. To be fair about half of the are different coloured repeats, but their layout and enemies are varied enough to make them interesting. Three different ships to play, although type 1 is by far the best with its later ability to shoot through walls. Well designed and interesting bosses that aren't a push over like Twin's but always seem surmountable once you learn them.
The Bad: The big problem, and this is a massive one, is the amateur mistake of your ship moving twice as fast diagonally than orthoganally. This makes for regular occasions when I would suddenly jerk straight into a nearby wall or enemy merely due to tapping a diagonal movement to avoid something. Upon examining the rest of the Console Collection it appears that this problem exists in all the other Console Darius games included, though to varying degrees. The Arcade Collection games all are perfectly coded so you move at predictable and consistent speed in those. So as usual for the time, the A teams were coding for the Arcades and the B teams were doing the ports with said sloppy mistakes filtering in. The game is certainly not unplayable, but I gave up putting in the time of trying to do a 1cc in anything but the easiest route, as a run could be ended in an unexpected single movement. A shame, as it would be a pretty good shmup if not for this glaring flaw.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 16, 2022 12:59:02 GMT
GotG - 6/10 Kind of surprised at how well received this has been in some quarters, the gameplay isn't great with the story and characters only really elevating it above average. I bet you didn't even close the fridge.
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Post by pierrepressure on Jan 16, 2022 14:17:47 GMT
Haha I did, several times! Sadly not enough for me to rate higher. Glad that it's found a decent audience though, I'd much rather play games like Guardians then another open world slog.
*preorders new Horizon game*
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Post by uiruki on Jan 16, 2022 14:48:06 GMT
1. Inscryption - PC - 4/5
A neat card game with a really interesting structure around it. I'm not a fan of deck builders so for it to keep me going to the end was an achievement, though it did take a few attempts for me to get there.
2. Gorogoa - PC - 4/5
A really nice little game to run through and enjoy the art. Ideal for game pass. Well worth your time if you have a couple of hours free.
Short but the right length; if it had been much longer I suspect it might have had difficulty keeping the internal logic consistent and avoided becoming the kind of game where all you are doing is guessing what the designer was thinking rather than working it out yourself.
3. Cyberpunk 2077 - PC - 4/5
An interesting game in the end, one which ended up being more fun and satisfying than I expected, but very much one of two halves, at least as of patch 1.31.
The first part is the first act, the linear section that's about six hours or so long, and arguably the final mission. When the game's guiding you along and fully working (as it was during act 1 at least) it's full of energy and pushing you along. A 15 hour or so campaign of that would be just my kind of game.
The other half is the middle part when you're in the city doing missions, and that's more of a mix in quality. There are some good stories in there as you get to know the side players in the game but the simulation and engine struggle so much and so often. It only outright crashed on me once but I did have to reload a few times and there were many occasions where I was thinking in the back of my mind about the possibility that things had gone wrong. In fairness, whenever they did, the game fixed itself with a reload but it did kind of drag things down a bit.
A low 4 but I'll revisit after the next big patch, go for some of the other endings maybe. It's so close to being great but at the same time I can see it needing so much work to get there.
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Post by Chopper on Jan 16, 2022 15:04:50 GMT
Framed (PC)
I am really bad at puzzle games, and while this one seems clever and stylish, I didn't get on with it at all. It's a series of comic strips detailing a heist/spy v spy caper, and you have to rearrange the panels in order for your guy or gal to make their way through to the final panel without getting apprehended:
Later it gets funky with rotating panels (eg staircases go up or down etc) and having to swap out panels as the protagonist runs through them.
Framed 2 is in the same collection, which I got in a recent Humble Bundle. I won't be playing that.
Did I mention I was bad at puzzle games?
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Post by uiruki on Jan 16, 2022 16:10:30 GMT
You know what the definition of madness is…
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 17, 2022 16:13:18 GMT
Valkyria chronicles 4 on the switch.
Very mixed feelings, I enjoyed and completed it, but often it felt just broken in several ways. Especially the stupid xp system. It on 100% dependent on speed. So I will do a map, take my time, explore and have fun. Not lose a single guy and finish with a ra k of D. Then Google it and you can one turn it by chaining some characters and just break it. And you needn't one turn it for that A rank otherwise you start drifting behind with low xp.
But despite that I enjoyed it a lot, not as much as I remember part 2 on the psp, but still worth a play.
7 or 8/10
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 17, 2022 16:15:49 GMT
Oh. Also...
Little Hope. (Dark pictures anthology on ps4.)
5 hours of tense fun, as I am playing I am excited to replay already as it is intriguing and scary and I want to see branches.
Then it ends with the biggest shit the bed moment since mass effect 3.
Will be the first in the series I don't replay and will actively tell everyone how much I hate it.
1/10
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 17, 2022 16:23:11 GMT
Oh, I finished Sherlock Holmes Chapter One yesterday.
Was good. Janky as hell, and performance is bad even on PS5. The intro mission is a smooth 60fps, then as soon as you exit in the open world, the framerate TANKS. Combat was not too fun either. Had to shoot the glowy armor then do QTE arrests. Or just shoot them in the face if you don't mind killing bandits I guess. Also wasn't a big fan of "Jon.". But all that said, the cases were fun to work out. In particular some of the more involved ones where you have to accuse the correct culprit and present evidence. Working out the right evidence to show during your accusation was tougher than similar systems in an Ace Attorney or Judgment.
I don't know what to rate it. 7.5 I guess. I want to give it an 8 because I'm generous, but the jankiness and poor performance won't let me.
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Post by Aunt Alison on Jan 17, 2022 16:46:00 GMT
Valkyria chronicles 4 on the switch. Very mixed feelings, I enjoyed and completed it, but often it felt just broken in several ways. Especially the stupid xp system. It on 100% dependent on speed. So I will do a map, take my time, explore and have fun. Not lose a single guy and finish with a ra k of D. Then Google it and you can one turn it by chaining some characters and just break it. And you needn't one turn it for that A rank otherwise you start drifting behind with low xp. But despite that I enjoyed it a lot, not as much as I remember part 2 on the psp, but still worth a play. 7 or 8/10 This is an issue with all the the VC games after the original. It's due to the way the maps are chopped up. It's always quickest to just run a scout to an enemy base and capture it. It ends up feeling more like a puzzle game than a strategy one and that's mainly due to the ranking system. Get rid of that and you'd be free to play it however you wanted
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hicksy
Junior Member
I'm good for some but I'm not for everyone
Posts: 1,549
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Post by hicksy on Jan 17, 2022 20:56:26 GMT
God Of War (PS4 on PS5)
Without a PS4 Pro pleased I waited to experience it on PS5 in its silky smooth goodness. What a fantastic game. Structure, Story, Enjoyable Gameplay, Voice Acting, Graphics… everything is top drawer. You can tell they took the best parts of Uncharted, TomB Raider and the agressive gameplay of the older God Of War games and married them to an Adult themed story to rival Last of Us in its maturity. You have to be patient in the first few hours as it builds in the mechanics and then it’s all gravy. One of the best games I’ve played of recent generations and ever for that matter.
9.5/10 - bring on Ragnarock!
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Post by theguy on Jan 17, 2022 21:21:13 GMT
deekyfun I swear I was gentle with Psychonauts. Shoving this here because though I haven't completed it I've sort of stopped playing it. Decided to check out Destruction All Stars. It's Demolition Derby but your car can only take so much damage before you have to jump out and get another. The servers are a bit dead. It takes a while to get into a game and the lobbies aren't always full either. You also end up facing the same people. Which is a shame, because I actually liked what I played. The movement is done quite well, and things play snappy and fast. I think they've put a fair bit of care in the game too. Each character, 16 or so of them has a background and there's even a story mode for a few with animated cinematics. None of it really interested me though and I'm not sure why I had to buy the story packs with currency, but it appears as if they gave the game proper attention. The problem is it kind of feels like I've already seen what it has to offer. Maybe it's because I don't play many Multiplayer games anyway. There aren't many actual modes (2), only a few maps, and some favour certain characters way more than others, so the balance is kind of off. It can be very hard to come back if you have a brief poor spell, and sometimes it felt like you wouldn't get points for something you did. Maybe it'd have done better if it also released on PS4, seems like it's sort of died already, and being PS5 exclusive hasn't helped the player counts at all. Shame because there's some good stuff here imo, potential for better I also checked out Knockout City. Multiplayer dodgeball on open maps . It's not bad, has some of the same issues. Low player counts and I'm sort of done with it already. Just not much compelling me to keep playing either of them.
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