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Post by RadicalRex on Aug 20, 2021 22:03:44 GMT
Axiom Verge 2
edit: I didn't like the game, but after watching the Making of Axiom Verge I felt like shit for thrashing his game, so I removed my "review".
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Post by Aunt Alison on Aug 20, 2021 22:10:37 GMT
Savage
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Post by RadicalRex on Aug 20, 2021 22:27:48 GMT
Is 9 reeeeeally considered to be that tough? I've beaten 4 levels/bosses so far and the hardest part has been on Jewel Man's stage where you have that swinging platform before a bit with loads of spikes. Kept trying to jump it until I worked out you're suppose to time the swing and walk off (I think). Really enjoying it though. Galaxy Man's stage music is amazing! I don't miss the slide or anything like that. I really like how basic classic Mega Man is and they still find interesting things to do with the levels and bosses with what they've got to work with It would be nice if they added a mode to the Zero games, etc that stripped out all the story and just gave you the levels as is. I'd say X1-X4 basically have the same structure. But yeah, completely agree that classic MM is the best I trust your judgement quite a bit because your write ups are always so well considered and in-depth. What other 2D action platformers do you like? It's hard to find good ones, even with indie games. Just didn't like Shovel Knight - the levels were far too long (if you need 5 check points per level, they're too long) and really hated the dropping your money on death thing, which seemed to exist purely as a nod to Dark Souls and added nothing but frustration. I like Dark Souls but I really dislike the influence it's had in general MM9 seems to be considered among the tougher MM games--but I do think the difficulty of MM is often exagerrated. It's often said how classic MM is "woo Nintendo hard", but I think in many ways it's more forgiving than more brutal games like Castlevania, or God forbid, Ghosts'n'Goblins. It's challenging alright, but not remotely as unfair as many other games especially on that system. I find it hard to judge MM9's difficulty against the other entries because I've played it so much I know it inside out and so to me it's the easiest of them. I do remember I was having a rough time initially, and for a more neutral comparison I can only rely on other people's opinions which seem to be mostly that it's one of the harder MM games--if maybe not as hard as MM&Bass. I actually didn't like Shovel Knight either, I found it... mediocre. If you're asking for my picks, retro-wise that would be MM4, MM6, Super Mario Bros 3, Super Metroid, Castlevania 4, Castlevania SotN, Gargoyle's Quest 1&2. In modern games, pretty much the ones I've mentioned in this thread before, MM9, MM11, 30XX, Bloodstained, Axiom Verge 1. MM9 may be debatable in terms of how "modern" it is--but MM11 all the way. I'm currently playing Zangetsu mode in Bloodstained. The controls/physics are so fucking spot on, it's fun to just jump around and slash the air. Perfection. A shame that it's so stupidly unbalanced. |
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Post by uiruki on Aug 21, 2021 1:26:47 GMT
42. 12 Minutes - PC - 1/5
Pretentious wank. Dicitonary definition of it. When you drop your amazing twist, maybe check to see if your players burst out laughing.
Starts out promising enough with a funny if muddled and frankly borderline broken escape room-esque game where you try and put item A into slot B to continue things but when it actually tries to tell a story it completely falls apart. Hollywood talent can't save that, especially when your main stars, both from the UK, are forced behind American accents for some reason.
Shit like this is why I don't play 'narrative' games for the most part - because this is the kind of garbage I think is waiting for me.
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Post by uiruki on Aug 22, 2021 22:26:37 GMT
43. Quake - PC - 4/5
The Machinegames episodes. A really great way to get back into Quake. Dimensions of the Past is a straight episode where you start with a simple level and things get more intense but it does a great job of reminding you how to play - the bit where it puts you alone with a Shambler at close range in particular is a great bit of 'show don't tell' and it'll have you Shambler dancing in no time.
Dimension of the Machine is a very impressive episode which is to Quake what something like Hexen was to Doom. Very advanced mapping, huge areas (only one of the maps had less than 100 enemies in Normal difficulty) and a super cool hub and spoke system. Well worth playing and genuinely impressive at times combined with the lighting in the new port.
44. The Ascent - PC - 3/5
It's alright. Not as good as I'd hoped. Some balance issues, area weirdness (extremely annoying to have miniboss enemies reset and heal while still in their spawn room) and it's still a bit stuttery and janky overall. Itemisation was extremely disappointing too.
What I was after was a more solid version of something like Warhammer Martyr; the idea of a top down loot game where you can take cover and mostly use guns is appealing but nobody's quite nailed it yet. This one's promising though - if they do a new one then I'll definitely keep an eye out as they're most of the way there.
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Post by wizbob on Aug 23, 2021 9:05:43 GMT
Cyberpunk 2077
This actually kept me occupied for most of this year. Entire systems seem to be largely redundant, I never bothered to craft or use items and I barely touched upgrades, skill points or cars until the end of the game. None of this matters though as the world is the most magneficent creation I have ever seen and I found the characters much more memorable than I had expected. Even the fetch quests are elegantly cloaked. I'll actually miss Night City.
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Post by PazJohnMitch on Aug 23, 2021 9:06:58 GMT
Ori and the Will of the Wisps Much improved over the original with an interesting set of powers and a few boss fights. Enjoyed mopping up collectibles and liked that you could buy maps for them. And even just get their locations as a reward for a quest. I had however bought the maps and collected most of them by the point I completed that quest. Traversal still felt somewhat imprecise which was an issue with the time trial challenges and the escape sections. Yes the escape sections are still as annoying as ever. Particularly one near the end of the game. 8/10 |
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Post by Wizzard_Ook on Aug 23, 2021 19:03:33 GMT
Modern Warfare
First one I’ve played since…Advanced I think. As slick as ever and a good cinematic treat but nothing much as changed. For a series in its 238th game I kinda expected it to do a few things better, mainly in its signalling and signposting of what you meant to do and where to go. As the game progressed, too often I was having to press the touchpad to check what I was meant to doing. As a few cheap deaths thrown in there too. It’s big shock moment was pretty poorly handled as well but overall it’s Good Sunday afternoon fun though, really shines when you sas’ing through buildings with the night Google’s on. Looks great too.
3/5
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Post by dfunked on Aug 23, 2021 22:08:33 GMT
FF7 Remake PS5 (Intergrade?) - 7/10 Probably would have given it more if I was a fan of the original, but I've never even played that so fuck it! The characters are all pretty terrible anime clichés, complete with ridiculously exaggerated sighs and grunts of approval. That seems to be par for the course from any FF game I've played though tbh. The story swung between vaguely interesting and utter drivel. Some of the side characters like the tubby idiot couldn't be killed off soon enough, but then came back like a bad smell when they could've spent the screen time on someone a little more interesting, like Red XIII. The epilogue showing Aldi Charlie Sheen being alive after all made me laugh. I honestly couldn't care less at that point! It was relatively short at 35 hours for me, but I was more than ready for it to end by then and couldn't be bothered going back to unlock any low hanging trophies after the credits rolled. at least the battle system was pretty engaging and made up for the bobbins plot, and obviously it all looks gorgeous. |
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malek86
Junior Member
Pomegranate Deseeder
Posts: 3,247
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Post by malek86 on Aug 24, 2021 21:24:29 GMT
Quake (PC)
I don't think this needs any comments. There's something about old school shooters that makes them age better than most other genres.
This time I finished everything, game and expansions, on Nightmare difficulty. It's not exactly a walk in the park, but compared to Doom on even just Ultra Violence, it's not much of a challenge either. Once you learn enemy placements, you won't have any trouble.
The expansions are more of a mixed bag. Scourge of Armagon is just more of the same. Dissolution of Eternity tries to spruce things up a bit, but the level design isn't great. Dimension of the Past is somewhere between ingenious and tedious (lots of Doom-style enemy hordes). It all culminates in the new Dimension of the Machine episode. Those maps are ridiculously big. and a lot more advanced than anything else seen in the game so far, takes 30-45 minutes to finish one. That episode alone is longer than the main game. But they also have a lot of cheap enemy placements, nearly unavoidable damage spots, and ammo starving. The difficulty does rise with each expansion after all. I liked DotM overall, but I prefer my Quake levels on the shorter side.
Anyway, it's still a joy to play.
9/10
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Post by richyroo on Aug 25, 2021 12:33:06 GMT
Dead Space 1 (PC) - 8/10Holds up incredibly well. Fantastic atmosphere, genuinely creepy. Well ahead of its time. Dead Space 2 (PC) - 9/10More action orinetated, but much more varied in its design. More weapons, more enemies, more environments. Still retains some of the creepiness, espcialy when you revisit the Ishimura. Currently playing DS3 and enjoying this more than when I played it the 1st time some number of years ago.
Hades (PS5) (10/10) Have seen the credits roll, but not sure you could say I have completed it. Still seems there is more story to unravel. Dont really need to say anything about this game as its all been said before. Remarkable.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 25, 2021 17:56:17 GMT
Quake (PC)I don't think this needs any comments. 9/10 Fixed that for you. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2021 15:49:29 GMT
psychonauts 2
Overall its good and its faithful to the 1st game (although never played much of it) There is some bad platforming bits like a ps2/xbox era game but slightly better. It does feel a bit too long and about half way point you want the worlds to be shorter. Barely touched any of the side missions, they don't feel needed, they should of focused on the main levels.
8/10
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Post by uiruki on Aug 29, 2021 21:58:19 GMT
45. Psychonauts 2 - PC - 5/5
A real treat. Amazing style, great audio and a fun story to run through. It's what the first game promised but with less of the irritations that ended up stopping me getting through. Don't get me wrong, the platforming's a little clunky at times and the combat isn't very good but the game is too busy throwing imaginative new areas and ideas at you for it to matter. At times visually it's something which could only ever work in a video game. On Game Pass it's a must play.
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Post by uiruki on Aug 30, 2021 22:19:06 GMT
46. Spider-Man Miles Morales - PS5 - 3/5
Fine. Web swinging's good, stealth is strong, it's a good demo of the PS5's abilities and Miles is a likeable character but I really hated the combat. You feel so weak!
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Post by PazJohnMitch on Aug 30, 2021 22:22:02 GMT
46. Spider-Man Miles Morales - PS5 - 3/5 Fine. Web swinging's good, stealth is strong, it's a good demo of the PS5's abilities and Miles is a likeable character but I really hated the combat. You feel so weak! Did you ignore all the venom moves? And the invisibility options? Miles has far, far superior powers to Peter. |
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Post by uiruki on Aug 30, 2021 22:32:00 GMT
Like I said, stealth was super strong, especially after a few upgrades. In a straight fight it was all waiting for the venom bar to charge while you plink away at guys.
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malek86
Junior Member
Pomegranate Deseeder
Posts: 3,247
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Post by malek86 on Aug 31, 2021 11:18:31 GMT
Myst (Series S)
Well, you know, it's the umpteenth Myst remake. The game is still good, but the touted randomization feature barely matters if you already know what to do, and I'm not a big fan of the new graphics. Some of the ages look good, others are a bit too different from the original. And the polygonal models for the NPCs are pretty bad.
On Series S, the performance mode is too unstable, so you're better off playing in graphics mode at 30fps . They said it should have ray tracing too, but I never saw it - reflections looked like regular SSR to me. Maybe it was just for the Series X, not sure. It uses AMD FSR and it looks okay, but it's obvious that it's basically a sharpen filter.
Anyway, I'll take any excuse to get through Myst again, and since it was on Game Pass...
7/10
Maybe at some point we'll get Riven too?
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Post by simple on Aug 31, 2021 14:55:40 GMT
46. Spider-Man Miles Morales - PS5 - 3/5 Fine. Web swinging's good, stealth is strong, it's a good demo of the PS5's abilities and Miles is a likeable character but I really hated the combat. You feel so weak! Did you ignore all the venom moves? And the invisibility options? Miles has far, far superior powers to Peter. I know I’m an advocate-apologist for easy modes in general but for the two Spider-man games the power fantasy is somewhat ruined by getting owned by grunt level thugs so no issue at all with dialling down the level to let Peter and Miles really kick ass. |
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Post by simple on Aug 31, 2021 14:56:36 GMT
Plus slogging through waves of dudes can be a chore at times so best getting them done fast
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Post by killerbee on Sept 1, 2021 9:49:40 GMT
Completed A Plague Tale: Innocence (PS5)
I really enjoyed this - interest in the sequel is definitely piqued.
I thought it told a good story with plenty of mystery and intrigue to keep you moving along. The core cast of characters were well realised and I though Amicia was a really strong lead and well voice acted. Admittedly the brother - Hugo - could be annoying and perhaps the child voice actor was occasionally not as good as the rest of the cast, which broke my immersion a little.
Environmental puzzles and exploring were great, with a big The Last of Us vibe. Stealth was also well handled and I can only really think of one mid-game section where I felt the demands of stealth were a source of frustration. Sadly, the combat out of stealth did let things down and the shift in emphasis towards the very end of the game to having to fight more and more enemies did detract from what was otherwise a good narrative conclusion. It just needed more reliable aiming or some close-quarters means of defending yourself desires the “last chance” consumable item.
Still, the rats were magnificent and it never got old using them to take out some unaware guard or create a diversion so you could sneak past.
Overall, I think it was a very good 8/10. We’ll worth playing.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 1, 2021 10:05:52 GMT
Wreckfest (PS5)
Completed the campaign. Great spiritual success to Destruction Derby without doing anything special. The handling and crash physics are satisfying and the game offers a good variety of race and destruction events so I never really got bored, even if the game is pretty brainless and easy. Sometimes that's what you need after a tiring day at work though. Irritating soundtrack is the only real negative about the game but that's not a big deal anymore when you can just stream music.
8/10
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robthehermit
Junior Member
Subjectively amusing
Posts: 2,462
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Post by robthehermit on Sept 2, 2021 10:28:24 GMT
AC Valhalla.
I'm not going for gold medal mastery achievement because it's utter bullshit.
Anyway it took me 240 hours according to Xbox. I'm not sure how accurate that is but I did play it for a fair bit, also some rather large chunks were replayed several times thanks to Ubi's inability to get quick resume and saving games to work properly.
The siege of paris overstayed it's welcome a bit towards the end and I skipped the last few conversations in their entirety. Off to finish up the last dlc for Immortals now.
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Graxlar
New Member
Nervous and skittish
Posts: 186
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Post by Graxlar on Sept 5, 2021 6:48:42 GMT
Neo: The world ends with you 7/10
First week is great, slightly drags middle of the second week and picks up massively in third week. Shibuya scramble days are long because to get the highest point total you need to play on hard and chain so many fights together that it becomes likely you will fail and have to repeat the fight from the beginning. I ended up getting annoyed bumping the difficulty down to normal and blitzing through the story. Haven’t done the true ending, not sure I can be bothered to replay all the days looking for boss souls.
Deaths Door 9/10
Oh man, this game is great. I have loved every moment of it. Again not yet got the true ending but saw credits and will definitely be back to do the 7/8 steps to finish the game properly. It’s very much a Zelda like sand well worth the £15 it cost.
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mrpon
Junior Member
Posts: 3,730
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Post by mrpon on Sept 9, 2021 7:59:55 GMT
Axiom Verge 2 edit: I didn't like the game, but after watching the Making of Axiom Verge I felt like shit for thrashing his game, so I removed my "review". Watched it last night, jeez that poor fucker, couldn't catch a break. Heart wrenching  |
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Post by dfunked on Sept 9, 2021 8:33:40 GMT
Bloody hell, just watched that. Poor guy!
AV is one of many games that I've bought at launch but never got around to playing. For once I'm glad that I did.
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Post by theguy on Sept 9, 2021 9:14:59 GMT
Brothers: A tale of Two Sons
Been meaning to play this for ages, finally got round to it. It's really good. I never quite got used to the whole controlling 2 characters at once thing, but it didn't get in the way much. It leads to some pretty unique gameplay and there's some fresh ideas throughout each chapter. A very nice puzzle platformer and doesn't overstay its welcome at all. I also didn't realise how morbid it would be. I expected a pretty light hearted adventure but, they couldn't even let me have a happy ending the cunts!
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Post by RadicalRex on Sept 9, 2021 23:04:57 GMT
Bloody hell, just watched that. Poor guy! AV is one of many games that I've bought at launch but never got around to playing. For once I'm glad that I did. Do play it, it's special. |
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Post by theguy on Sept 11, 2021 19:40:19 GMT
Abzu
Maybe I don't like fish, maybe I wasn't in the mood or maybe I'm just tired of these artsy 'traverse through the pretty environment' games, but this didn't click with me at all
A bore and I was glad to finish it
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Post by dfunked on Sept 12, 2021 13:55:07 GMT
So as per the above, Axiom Verge - 9/10
That was bloody great! I somehow breezed through the last three bosses despite struggling with some of the earlier ones. It probably helps that I started trying to switch up my weapons a bit which helped massively with the wasp boss, then went out of my way to get the flamethrower which makes the last two bosses/enemies in the last area a walk in the park.
Difficulty can be a bit harsh in places where regular enemies take a quarter of your health in one hit, which made one section in particular a bit frustrating, but save rooms are plentiful and thankfully you don't lose map/item progress when you die.
It feels like a pretty incredible achievement for one guy to have make this, which is sad considering what he went through and never getting to enjoy his accomplishments. It's obviously borrowed heavily from other greats in the genre, but still feels fresh. Probably would've edged a 10/10 if there was some kind of teleport/quick travel system to aid backtracking, hence my low item rate below (the flying head thing seemed a bit useless really)
11:04, 66% items, 89% map, 29 deaths
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