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Post by dfunked on Aug 12, 2022 8:31:52 GMT
Hehe... do do.
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Post by Trowel 🏴 on Aug 13, 2022 14:17:39 GMT
The Turing Test - 7/10
Enjoyed this far more than I expected, largely because the puzzles are brief and pretty straightforward, and there's some nice gameplay mechanisms introduced halfway through (which is probably too late). Otherwise it's a fairly generic first person Portal-inspired puzzler with a load of psychological bollocks thrown in for good measure.
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Post by dangerousdave on Aug 14, 2022 23:01:00 GMT
The Last Campfire (Switch)
I picked this up a few days ago as something to play in the evenings. A wind down game before bed. However, I got rather engrossed in it and ended up completing it in three evenings.
Its a charming and meloncholic adventure/puzzle game in which you have to free lost souls from their troubles and guide them towards the after life. It's executed in such a way that its never sad. The narrative is quite light, but characters you meet along the way are all humble and sweet.
The game plays like a combination of both a retro and modern Zelda title, without any combat. The overworld is broken up into different areas and each of these areas feel like a traditional zelda dungeon of sorts, looking for keys, solving light puzzles, etc...
Within these areas you are also looking for a given number of lost souls. These lost souls, when you find one, transport you to puzzle rooms much like the Shrines in Breath of the Wild. They're not especially difficult, but they're clever, fun and satisying to solve.
There's not much else to say about it really, other than its made by the same folk that made No Man's Sky, which is bizarre because this is nothing like that game.
All in all it took 7 hours to finish and it got me thinking. This would be a great first game for a child to play with their parents. My first games were Sonic and the original Zelda and I have fond memories of playing the latter with my mum watching and guiding me when I got lost.
This would work just as well with the puzzle solving.
Recommended/10
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Post by harrypalmer on Aug 16, 2022 8:31:52 GMT
It Takes Two - 5/10
This ended up being a real slog, it's just way too long. There are excellent bits, but a lot of filler and some extremely frustrating sections which outstay their welcome. I know I am completely unqualified to say this, but as a player it feels badly designed, it was often confusing and unclear where we were supposed to go or what we were supposed to do.
The writing and acting was also poor, too many cutscenes that needed trimming down. In fact, the whole game should have been half the length and consisted only of the good stuff. This is pretty much how I felt about A Way Out too, which I preferred. Easy to say, but overall I just didn't enjoy it, which is a shame as there aren't enough coach co-op games like this.
How this won game of the year over Returnal is beyond me!
Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle 7/10
This was a pleasant surprise. It's constantly in a deep sale so I picked it up for £5 which feels like insane value. Overall it's fantastic but again I felt it was a bit long, and the non battle parts felt like filler. But those battles are terrific, its surprisingly deep and very polished. The Rabbids didn't annoy me at all, which I wasn't expecting!
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Post by Chopper on Aug 16, 2022 14:05:50 GMT
I finished Derail Valley, or rather upgraded to the biggest locomotive. It's a real beaut, too, and great fun to drive, but hopefully the game will revamp the job structure a bit before it leaves early access. I never made it to several places on the map because jobs didn't send me there, and it would be nice to get more loads to far flung places for the bigger trains.
Great game though, probably top three on the year so far.
I also finished up some DLC for Monster Slayers. It was only a couple of new heroes, so didn't take long. Geat game.
I also completed the core game of Sentinels of the Multiverse. This is a card battler (but not a deckbuilder!) based around a bunch of superheroes defeating various villains. The core game came with 4 villains and maybe 8-10 heroes with fixed decks, of whom you can field 2-5 in each battle. So I beat all the villains and had a good time, though it took me a fair while to cop on to the mechanics/card usage. There's about a hundred quid's worth of DLC with new heroes, villains etc, so I might keep an eye out for some of those packs in the sale. There are also some high quality, full fan-created campaign mods I should check out but as I have mentally marked it complete, that'll take a bit of effort.
Edit: I should say that the big drawback of Sentinels is that it is very click-heavy. Like that villain on the right above, he has 8 minion cards on the table, all of which do 2-3 damage to all of my heroes at the end of a turn. There was an incredible amount of clicking through everybody and applying damage one at a time. Other areas also required lots of clicks - for example if you had an attack which hits three enemies, and you played it when there was only one enemy left on the board, you had to select that enemy, and then hit the skip button afterwards, instead of just automatically applying the damage to the one enemy and moving on, like any sane game.
Very good game though, apart from that.
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Post by dangerousdave on Aug 16, 2022 18:44:47 GMT
harrypalmer With you on It Takes Two. One of the weakest platformers I've ever played.
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Post by kilters on Aug 16, 2022 19:48:40 GMT
It Takes Two - 5/10This ended up being a real slog, it's just way too long. There are excellent bits, but a lot of filler and some extremely frustrating sections which outstay their welcome. I know I am completely unqualified to say this, but as a player it feels badly designed, it was often confusing and unclear where we were supposed to go or what we were supposed to do. The writing and acting was also poor, too many cutscenes that needed trimming down. In fact, the whole game should have been half the length and consisted only of the good stuff. This is pretty much how I felt about A Way Out too, which I preferred. Easy to say, but overall I just didn't enjoy it, which is a shame as there aren't enough coach co-op games like this. How this won game of the year over Returnal is beyond me! This! Gave up after 30 mins. Poor platforming and the premise/characters were so annoying.
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Post by Aunt Alison on Aug 16, 2022 20:21:04 GMT
Finished Shadow of the Tomb Raider a couple of nights ago but decided to sit on it for a bit so I didn't gush quite so much. I've already been quite effusive about it in the other thread so I won't repeat myself (I might) It's well good though. The characterisation of Lara is miles ahead of 2013. Strong, confident, intelligent, in control, deadly. There's a scene where she loses it and kills a cowering unarmed enemy, not out of survival or self defense, because she's angry. The game doesn't try to justify or excuse it - she's a killer, and good one. It's what she is but not all she is and her character in this is one of my all time favourites. I loved playing her I had to look up if it was the same person because the voice actress is so different in Shadow. I don't know if that's a reflection of her portrayal or if she's more comfortable in the role, but I really liked listening to her in this. There's far less of the self reassurance that's a constant in 2013. Animations for the main cast, especially facial, are also amazing. I was glued to the cutscenes just watching their eyes move as they think or lips as they look for words. It's getting to the point now where it does feel like you're watching real people and a lot of what is being said is through body language. Unuratu is another great character to watch/listen to who really stood out I thought the story was well done. It's a pretty standard preventing the end of the world scenario but it's told well and easy to follow - you know who everyone is and what's happening and why. It always felt present but never jarring to be going off doing other things. Jonah is a bit of a spare part but harmless enough and I was glad you basically ditch him at the first town and spend the majority of the game off exploring alone Love the setting too. I can't think of a better one for this kind of thing. It's one of those games that made me interested in the subject matter while I was playing it. Those crazy Mayans with their gods, human sacrifices and bare arses everywhere I bought it as part of the trilogy collection in a sale (it was only like 17 quid - mad) so got all the DLC included which adds about 8 or so challenge tombs and some side quests so the game is a decent size. All the tombs were great and it's well worth grabbing the lot as it all fit fairly seamlessly into the main game, though I would guess the DLC tombs are the ones with the loading screens. No OP gear or anything like that though. I ended up finding most of the collectibles in this one (they're done much better than in 2013) because exploring was just so much fun to do and although you can find things that reveal the locations of them, I'd usually already found most of them by that point anyway, and a few took a bit of effort, which was great I also have to say the final sequence is just the best. A straight shot to the end that had my jaw on the floor it's so cool. The scene at the end with Crimson Fire is just so, so very cool I've just started Rise and I really don't see it topping Shadow. It already feels more 2013 than Shadow. Shadow just feels like a very different game to me - more of an adventure. I hope Eidos Montreal gets another go at a Tomb Raider because they absolutely nailed it 10/10 100/100 A++
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Post by Aunt Alison on Aug 16, 2022 20:25:19 GMT
I mean, look at this She's fucking rad
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Post by stuz359 on Aug 16, 2022 20:35:12 GMT
Rise of the Tomb Raider was still cross gen, whereas Shadow was full PS4/Xbone gen. The truth is, the developers seemed to grow in confidence with each iteration.
Rise annoyed the fuck out of me though, the opening half hour was just Lara having handholds break on her, cue cutscene. For that first half hour it was just so non-interactive it was jarring. Just let me play the fucking game already.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 16, 2022 20:37:05 GMT
Yeah, I'm of the opinion that Shadow was the finest of the reboot trilogy. Eidos Montreal was the best of the old Eidos group, and Square Enix are fools for letting them go.
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Kay
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Post by Kay on Aug 16, 2022 20:59:40 GMT
I played through most of Shadow last summer. I agree it was pretty great for the most part, though it still had some open-world cliches and the story was pretty bland iirc. But the tombs and puzzling/exploration was very well done, and quite challenging too on the harder difficulties. I think I got to the very last area before stopping, and my PS+ has since run out so I didn't get a chance to finish it off. I think I had my fill overall though.
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Ulythium
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Post by Ulythium on Aug 16, 2022 21:09:23 GMT
Shadow was actually my least-favourite of the reboot trilogy, with Rise being my... most-favourite, I guess?
I'm always a sucker for snowy settings, so Rise had a head start from the off; I also liked the Baba Yaga DLC a good deal.
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Post by Aunt Alison on Aug 16, 2022 21:12:39 GMT
I'm just practicing my facial expression for the thumbnail to my YT video 'Why Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a MASTERPIECE and 2013 SUCKS'
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Post by Aunt Alison on Aug 16, 2022 21:20:14 GMT
One of the things that really bothers me about 2013 and Rise so far is they love beating the hell out of Lara. She isn't shown to be strong but resilient. It's almost torture-porn levels of gross. Already in Rise she's taken three massive falls that have resulted in that high pitched sound when you knock your head and is all bloodied up. She's constantly tumbling
That's completely absent from Shadow and it's so much better for it
I read a quote of the devs on 2013 that said they wanted male players to want to protect Lara while they were playing it, which explains quite a bit
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Post by Deleted on Aug 16, 2022 21:39:29 GMT
Tomb Waifu
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Ulythium
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Post by Ulythium on Aug 16, 2022 21:51:49 GMT
I'm with you on that, AA - the Crystal Dynamics team went more than a bit overboard with their whole 'knock the pretty girl about until she's black and blue' thing.
Some of my (relative) apathy towards Shadow stemmed from the fact that it was the final part of a trilogy, and while I wanted to finish the saga, I was also ready to move on. Not the game's fault, nor the devs'.
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Post by bichii on Aug 16, 2022 22:18:49 GMT
As dusk falls
First game I've completed in a minute. It was okay, it went on way too long and all the characters you controlled were really annoying and the game took loads of decisions away from you. After checking you tube after at least there were a few different endings. How anyone could forgive someone for sleeping with someone else is beyond me.
6/10
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Post by Danno on Aug 16, 2022 22:22:55 GMT
As dusk falls First game I've completed in a minute. It was okay, it went on way too long and all the characters you controlled were really annoying and the game took loads of decisions away from you. After checking you tube after at least there were a few different endings. How anyone could forgive someone for sleeping with someone else is beyond me. 6/10 I watched a Lets Play (don't have an Xbox) and uhh.. yeah. Nailed it.
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MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Aug 17, 2022 2:14:47 GMT
I finished Xenoblade Chronicles 3.
's good.
It felt a lot more mature than the other games in the series, both in the theming and the (relative) lack of T&A fan service. The battle system is more manageable too, and the fetch questing is streamlined a lot. As a whole it felt far less messy than XC2.
The final bit of the main story was a bit rubbish, but it was overall very much worth a play. I'm amazed I found the time for it, but I'm glad I did!
8/10
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Post by pierrepressure on Aug 17, 2022 7:29:58 GMT
Already?!
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MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Aug 17, 2022 7:34:08 GMT
Yeah, with this kind of thing I've learned that I really need to get through it as quickly as I can. If I lose momentum I'll stop, and when I go back to it I won't remember wtf is going on.
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Post by dfunked on Aug 17, 2022 8:12:29 GMT
Then there's me at 14 hours played... In fairness I'd easily complete a couple of 30 hour games in the time I've had this. Like I mentioned in the thread it's just not clicking so far and will probably end up on the pile of shame.
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Duffman5
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Post by Duffman5 on Aug 17, 2022 8:33:10 GMT
I really need to get through it as quickly as I can. If I lose momentum I'll stop, and when I go back to it I won't remember wtf is going on. Totally get this. I enjoy ARPG's but have so many with less than 10-15 hours played (so only just getting started) and often not played for months/years, so when I return I have not got a clue! see below for just a few that fit the criteria: FO4. to be fair I am around 20 hours into this and do enjoy when playing, it is no FO3 but very little is. Elex 1 Decided to return and play, as I bought Elex2. I had sacked it off around 11 hours, level 8, last played in 2018 So I have no idea what I'm doing, even with the quest log! Dragons Dogma DA. I try every so often, but hate the map/quest markers, my brain just does not understand them. DA 3. Oblivion FONV TW3, still not touched the dlc's ...this is just a few. I could restart them but I do not have the enthusiasm to do so, I could also uninstall and forget them but the FOMO in me is strong when it comes to any game I start.
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Post by rhaegyr on Aug 17, 2022 9:08:59 GMT
Some terrible takes of It Takes Two in this thread.
Characters were annoying and the story wasn't much cop but the gameplay, control, variety and level design were top notch.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 17, 2022 15:14:09 GMT
I really need to get through it as quickly as I can. If I lose momentum I'll stop, and when I go back to it I won't remember wtf is going on. Elex 1 Decided to return and play, as I bought Elex2. I had sacked it off around 11 hours, level 8, last played in 2018 So I have no idea what I'm doing, even with the quest log!. Picked this up on sale last week, thinking about asking MS for a refund. It's still super buggy years later, even on Series X. Like I'm at the beginning, before I've even reached the first town. There's a UI bug where the game freezes whenever I try to equip a weapon stronger than the old pipe. I've restarted the Xbox, uninstalled and reinstalled the game. Doesn't matter, still happens. Seeing as equipping stronger weapons is essential in any RPG, that makes it unplayable.
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MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Aug 17, 2022 15:34:27 GMT
I really need to get through it as quickly as I can. If I lose momentum I'll stop, and when I go back to it I won't remember wtf is going on. Totally get this. I enjoy ARPG's but have so many with less than 10-15 hours played (so only just getting started) and often not played for months/years, so when I return I have not got a clue! see below for just a few that fit the criteria: FO4. to be fair I am around 20 hours into this and do enjoy when playing, it is no FO3 but very little is. Elex 1 Decided to return and play, as I bought Elex2. I had sacked it off around 11 hours, level 8, last played in 2018 So I have no idea what I'm doing, even with the quest log! Dragons Dogma DA. I try every so often, but hate the map/quest markers, my brain just does not understand them. DA 3. Oblivion FONV TW3, still not touched the dlc's ...this is just a few. I could restart them but I do not have the enthusiasm to do so, I could also uninstall and forget them but the FOMO in me is strong when it comes to any game I start. If it helps your motivation, New Vegas is vastly better than both FO3 *and* 4. It's very much worth your time, and like the other two you can also mod the crap out of it.
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Kay
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Post by Kay on Aug 17, 2022 16:12:16 GMT
Yeah, with this kind of thing I've learned that I really need to get through it as quickly as I can. If I lose momentum I'll stop, and when I go back to it I won't remember wtf is going on. Tbh I'm in awe at the amount of films and TV shows you seem to get through, judging by your reviews in those threads, as well as finding the time to get through a massive JRPG within a couple of weeks of release. Not a dig btw, I'm genuinely impressed!
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Post by Danno on Aug 17, 2022 17:47:54 GMT
Yeah, with this kind of thing I've learned that I really need to get through it as quickly as I can. If I lose momentum I'll stop, and when I go back to it I won't remember wtf is going on. This has happened to me. Felt like things were accelerating towards a final chapter but I got distracted and haven't played in maybe a fortnight
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MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Aug 17, 2022 21:30:04 GMT
Yeah, with this kind of thing I've learned that I really need to get through it as quickly as I can. If I lose momentum I'll stop, and when I go back to it I won't remember wtf is going on. Tbh I'm in awe at the amount of films and TV shows you seem to get through, judging by your reviews in those threads, as well as finding the time to get through a massive JRPG within a couple of weeks of release. Not a dig btw, I'm genuinely impressed! Having taken two weeks off work for a film festival certainly helped with that. Back to normal next week though!
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