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Post by ToomuchFluffy on Jul 31, 2023 15:48:08 GMT
I played through a very short free Walking Simulator called Cloud Climber. It's pretty, but otherwise you are not missing much. There is voice acting, but it felt unneeded and the same is true for the very light gameplay mechanics, the "inventory" etc.
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Post by LockeTribal on Jul 31, 2023 17:06:35 GMT
Finished God of War (the PS4 one) at the weekend. Cracking game, great story, genuinely tempting to go back and try for the platinum.
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Ulythium
Full Member
Lily-livered
Posts: 6,799
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Post by Ulythium on Jul 31, 2023 19:23:36 GMT
The Last Guardian.
If you came into this game knowing nothing whatsoever about it, but having played Shadow of the Colossus at some point, you'd quickly realise that the two came from the same creator - for better and worse, they have a lot in common.
Everything that makes Shadow of the Colossus brilliant, from the omnipresent minimalism to the beautiful art style, is here in spades; unfortunately, everything that makes that game frustrating is also present and correct, from the wonky controls to the finicky camera.
Unlike its celebrated predecessor, experiencing The Last Guardian for the first time in 2023 doesn't necessitate stripping away layers of hype and history to reach a point from which one can assess the game on its merits alone. (Back when it launched, having spent umpteen years in development hell, there was a certain amount of baggage attached - "Holy crap, it actually came out!" - but that dissipated pretty quickly.)
Enough with the masturbatory preamble, already - is it any good?
For me, this game's highs easily match those of Colossus; indeed, they often surpass them outright.
I'd go so far as to say that if it were possible to do a true like-for-like comparison, and play a Bluepoint remake of Guardian, I'd give both games the same score out of 10 while actually preferring this one.
In the absence of such, and "reviewing" the game in front of me (rather than some idealised version that doesn't exist!), I have to concede that The Last Guardian falls short of the standard set by Shadow of the Colossus.
While Bluepoint did a solid job of remaking the latter, to the point whereby it just about felt like a native PS4 title, the former still plays like the PS3 game it was originally meant to be... which is a crying shame, as the jank will put a lot of people off, and they'll be missing out big time.
No self-indulgent forum post about The Last Guardian would be complete without an effusive paragraph or three about Trico, and rightly so - it's the star of the show on every conceivable level, and the devs did a *phenomenal* job on that front.
At once familiar and alien, Trico has been imbued with enough recognisable traits to make any animal lover "Aww!" repeatedly, and I must've spent at least half of my 12-hour playthrough with a big goofy grin on my face as a result. It's cute and playful and loyal and fun and intimidating and feathery and timid and scary and cuddly and dopey and deadly and smart and furry and I JUST LOVE TRICO, OKAY?
With less clunkiness, it could've been a 9; without Trico being so utterly adorable, it would've been a 7 at best. It seems only fair, then, to say
8/10.
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Post by Nanocrystal on Jul 31, 2023 23:49:46 GMT
Ghost of Tsushima (Director's Cut)
Very late to the party here and not sure I've got much to say that hasn't already been said. This was pretty spectacular. Easily the prettiest game I've ever played, and I certainly have never used photo mode so much. While Elden Ring (and BotW before it) raised the bar for open world games far more significantly, this game made a few neat innovations on the formula, such as minimising the HUD and following the wind, or animals, instead of quest markers. Tracking enemies involved actually looking for their tracks (!) rather than just following a glowing trail.
The combat was fun, with dodges and parries being much easier to pull off than in most Soulslikes, a fairly deep collection of tools to use (albeit some feeling rather OP like the kunai) and the stance system working very intuitively. Stand offs never got old, ok they're basically a glorified QTE but they're stylish and cool and always felt great.
The overall story was fairly basic, but effective, and the moment-to-moment writing was actually pretty high quality for the most part, with some very strong side characters, a few big dramatic moments that absolutely nailed it (particularly the ending) and plenty of more subtle, understated bits too.
Just a few minor criticisms. The wind effect would have been better left to just the particles and leaves, the white brush stroke effects looked too videogamey and spoiled the aesthetic a bit for me. And much as I enjoyed it, the game was too damn big. 30 hours would have been perfect. Much like Elden Ring, the late game snowy area is a bit underwhelming and starts to feel a bit repetitive. In the end I finished the main story and side quests in about 45 hours. I will probably mop up the platinum trophy but am reluctant to start the DLC... might leave that for another time.
9/10
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Post by Nanocrystal on Aug 1, 2023 1:14:36 GMT
The Quarry (PS5)
Absolutely hated this. Sluggish controls that make you feel like you're walking through treacle, with a camera positioned way too close to the character, a tiny FOV, and large areas to explore with barely anything to find. Lots of little details are obscured by poor editing and just straight up excessive darkness where you can't see shit. Horrible, horrible dialogue. Choices may well lead to later repercussions, but it sure as hell doesn't feel like it - the illusion of having no choice. At times "Path chosen" would flash up on the screen even when I hadn't actively made an input for several minutes. A pervading sense of "what am I supposed to be doing now, exactly?" peppered with the occasional "wait, what?? I thought we were supposed to be doing X??". Maybe this disjointed feeling and poor pacing comes from a large number of plot permutations? Doesn't make it any less jarring and frustrating.
Avoid/10
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Post by ToomuchFluffy on Aug 1, 2023 6:01:40 GMT
"The Mason Scale" has just uploaded his review two days ago in case you are interested.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Aug 2, 2023 14:28:39 GMT
Jedi Survivor
Basically everything I wanted in a sequel. Expands and improves upon everything from the first game. Good mix of puzzles, exploration and great light saber combat. Looks stunning and the story is compelling and ramps up in the 2nd half. I'll look forward to a 3rd.
9/10
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Post by ToomuchFluffy on Aug 2, 2023 15:38:15 GMT
I'm done with Scorn (8+ hours) and overall it was pretty much what I had wanted it to be. I really liked the more open area after Act I and I would have wished for a bit more of that and Act III and IV were a bit similar to each other, but other than that I didn't have too much trouble with anything. Well, except getting stuck on puzzles that turned out to be fairly easy. But that's just me and pretty much every game with one-of-a-kind puzzles.
The aesthetics of the environments were great of course, but the way the soundscape and the sounds of interaction with machinery and such, combines with that, is really what makes it so effective. Just activating some machine to open some door or to reload on health or ammo, felt fairly satisfying and danger is always made clear through easily recognizable sound cues.
Story-wise it's confusing and there seems to be no concrete information on the world and creatures that inhabit it. Gameplay-wise there is at least the Controls menu that seemed pretty essential to understand what the player's options are. But especially early on the various tools one picks up and the random interactions one can do lacked context. Still, I wouldn't have it any other way as it fits and there was its own satisfaction in slowly understanding what the various tools are for.
Combat wasn't much of an issue, but I mostly didn't engage with it when I had any choice at all. The boss fight was slow and the second phase was a bit confusing, but in the end still less trouble than some of the puzzles.
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Rich
Junior Member
Posts: 1,960
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Post by Rich on Aug 4, 2023 18:57:02 GMT
Disco Elysium
A genuinely great game from start to finish. Superbly well written and voice acted with a huge credit to the guy doing the narration and internal thoughts.
Really enjoyed playing a fairly unhinged but intelligent character as well even if I did drift towards a more 'good' cop as the game went on. Would love to go through it again as a completely different type, violent fascist maybe just to see it play out differently but it's so long I doubt I ever will.
10/10
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Tomo
Junior Member
Posts: 3,260
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Post by Tomo on Aug 5, 2023 2:29:51 GMT
Disco is the best RPG ever made, bar none. I really hope the devs sort out all the shit going on and we get a sequel.
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apollo
Junior Member
Posts: 1,504
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Post by apollo on Aug 5, 2023 6:00:27 GMT
Toem
Very short game and on gamepass, you just go round black and white worlds taking pictures to solve quests to get stamps to go to the next area. Its very chill game and makes a change from the usual other games
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apollo
Junior Member
Posts: 1,504
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Post by apollo on Aug 6, 2023 7:06:40 GMT
Batman Arkham Knight: Catwoman DLC
Glad it was part of the complete edition I got cheap ages ago as its very very short DLC but they throw in this cheap arena fight in a small area with tons of robots that electify the floor and catwoman's health is tiny. If you do that fight in 1 go, its about 15 minutes for the whole thing. Before that its take out some machine gun goons in a small area so it gets hard to takedown
3/10
still have the batgirl and red hood DLC
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lukasz
New Member
Meat popsicle
Posts: 641
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Post by lukasz on Aug 6, 2023 8:53:25 GMT
Batman Arkham Knight: Catwoman DLC
Glad it was part of the complete edition I got cheap ages ago as its very very short DLC but they throw in this cheap arena fight in a small area with tons of robots that electify the floor and catwoman's health is tiny. If you do that fight in 1 go, its about 15 minutes for the whole thing. Before that its take out some machine gun goons in a small area so it gets hard to takedown
3/10
still have the batgirl and red hood DLC
Post your opinion on both when you are done. I did enjoy catwoman dlc but not the main fight. Had fun with her kicking goons up. But it was short indeed.
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Post by ToomuchFluffy on Aug 6, 2023 13:41:46 GMT
Disco is the best RPG ever made, bar none. I really hope the devs sort out all the shit going on and we get a sequel. It's honestly a bit hard to compare to most of them. The only ones that are similarly disinterested in combat are the Torments and perhaps a few others. But even then setting and tone of Disco are quite unique. Really one of a kind, I think.
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Rich
Junior Member
Posts: 1,960
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Post by Rich on Aug 6, 2023 15:10:43 GMT
I've tried Planescape but it was just too dated for me unfortunately. I'm sure it's great but just reading walls of text on a screen wasn't really enjoyable. In all honesty I doubt I'd have stuck with Disco if it wasn't for fact that it was fully and excellently voice acted.
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malek86
Junior Member
Pomegranate Deseeder
Posts: 3,176
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Post by malek86 on Aug 6, 2023 16:46:11 GMT
Teslagrad Remastered
I didn't remember much of this game since I last played it on PS4, almost ten years ago. I guess it's an okay metroidvania, certainly a bit more unusual than most. There's very little combat, and most screens are basically platforming puzzles using magnetism and polarity. It's fun, but can be very fiddly due to the physics-based nature of the platforming.
Unfortunately, unlike most metroidvania, since many of the screens are puzzles, even in the late game you don't feel like you are powerful enough to breeze through the early stuff. So that makes backtracking and collecting all 36 hidden scrolls a chore. You only need 15 to finish the game (and in this remaster you don't even need that many, but I got exactly 15 anyway) and I didn't feel encouraged to go back and find them all for the special ending.
At around 4 hours, it's short and varied enough to not feel too heavy. I guess collecting all the scrolls would take quite a bit longer - there's even one that seems inspired by the infamous death tunnel from VVVVVV. But that game had really precise platforming, this one not enough for me to try.
6/10
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Post by ToomuchFluffy on Aug 6, 2023 18:12:43 GMT
I've tried Planescape but it was just too dated for me unfortunately. I'm sure it's great but just reading walls of text on a screen wasn't really enjoyable. In all honesty I doubt I'd have stuck with Disco if it wasn't for fact that it was fully and excellently voice acted. Yeah, I know what you mean. For some reason I never had that problem with Planescape, but Tides of Numenera felt really weird. Almost only reading and a bit of exploration with almost no combat. For the longest time I ended up playing only fairly short sessions even though I did like it. Took a long while to really click.
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Post by Rubicon on Aug 6, 2023 21:33:42 GMT
23. Driver 3 (PS2 - 2004)
Where to begin.
I've not played this since its original release and was vaguely aware of the controversy surrounding it. As with back then my experience differed from what has been said and I encountered no real bugs (my car being rammed onto a building roof being a highlight) and everything seemed stable, though I did only play the story mode.
The game is showing its age which I normally wouldn't mind but given the precision timing needed and punishing difficulty where the faintest ding can mean a fail there are issues with pop-in. The Nice levels in particular are guilty of this with a lot of night missions and having to speed through narrow lanes whilst watching out for indestructible lampposts and bollards appearing out of nowhere. Car models and cinematics hold up (as does the soundtrack) and missions are varying degrees of throwing the controller at the wall.
I'm not a driving fan but gather this is the one area they managed to get right. The bullshit begins the moment you take Tanner out of the car and give him the most sluggish (re: useless) crouch/roll animations and the second most useless jump in recent memory. Using the free aim to shoot is horrible but thankfully someone had the foresight to add in an auto aim... though someone else had the idea to place enemies in the most scummiest positions meaning you will be killed before you realise what is going on or are able to swing the camera around.
Add in erratic checkpoints which never happen when you think they should, the aim locking onto enemies who are behind invisible walls and the odd confusing mission and what you have is a recipe of frustration.
Saying all that, it was good to play the game again and hark back to an era when games were punishingly difficult, though that difficulty will be what turns a lot of people off nowadays - especially when you add everything else in on top. I had fun but in a slightly sadistic way. 6/10
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Post by brainbird on Aug 6, 2023 22:16:52 GMT
Masochistic maybe? Unless you wanted to give Driv3r anything more than a 2/10 and have someone believe it's not a huge turd. If that was your intention you're indeed a very sadistic person.
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Duffman5
Junior Member
big cook, little cook welcome to our cafe
Posts: 1,332
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Post by Duffman5 on Aug 8, 2023 4:01:43 GMT
Alan Wake remastered,ps5: signal dlc. VERY poor with way to many enemies, didn't enjoy. 3/10. Last bit of dlc to go and then I will be done with Wake, the game and experience is so much poorer than I remember on 360.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Aug 8, 2023 18:45:02 GMT
Last year’s Modern Warfare II. Really struggled to finish this one. Just found it boring in writing and mission design. I still have BLOPS III and Cold War in my set of CoD games I got on sale. This is giving me an urge to quit the franchise, but I don’t want to leave it on a sour note. Think I should give BLOPS a go at least, since I like the sci-fi entries more. Also Cold War is stupid big, like 250GB or something. Fuck that. But yeah. 4/10.
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Post by Nanocrystal on Aug 8, 2023 22:12:55 GMT
Haven (PS5)
You play as a young couple stranded on an alien planet and trying to repair their ship. The gameplay is part Journey as you glide over sparse landscapes, part JRPG-lite with turn-based-style combat, and part visual novel as you watch the character interactions. The latter aspect is the game's main strength. The characters are very likeable and extremely well-written, and I found watching their relationship play out really cute and engaging. The game vividly portrays a young couple living together and all that entails, even addressing their bedroom exploits (though obviously not explicitly showing it) in a way that is fun, funny and realistic, with none of the "how do you do fellow kids" cringe that we've come to expect when games feature sexual relationships. Easily the best romantic relationship I've seen portrayed in a video game.
While I found that the combat encounters could sometimes be frustrating due to the way the input timings worked, overall the gameplay was a very chilled experience where you explore the planet and uncover secrets and new story beats. The story is serviceable and well-told, and I finished the main path in around 9 hours which felt about right. Special mention to the soundtrack, a wonderful synthy electronic score in the vein of Mirror's Edge.
Lovely stuff, and a great little game to play between those triple-A behemoths.
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Gruf
Junior Member
Even more taciturn than my name suggests
Posts: 1,537
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Post by Gruf on Aug 9, 2023 7:51:35 GMT
Witcher 3 8/10 Fuck me that dragged on, thought I was near the end 3 weeks ago. Good game but far far too long. Geralt controls like a goat simulator though.
While deleting I noticed it was "only" 40GB on the PS5 version, tiny by comparison to some of the games these days
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lukasz
New Member
Meat popsicle
Posts: 641
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Post by lukasz on Aug 9, 2023 7:58:36 GMT
Witcher 3 8/10 Fuck me that dragged on, thought I was near the end 3 weeks ago. Good game but far far too long. Geralt controls like a goat simulator though. While deleting I noticed it was "only" 40GB on the PS5 version, tiny by comparison to some of the games these days DLCs when?
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Gruf
Junior Member
Even more taciturn than my name suggests
Posts: 1,537
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Post by Gruf on Aug 9, 2023 8:18:35 GMT
Had my fill of Witcher for the moment TBH, I'm aware some of the DLC is pretty good, but that's enough already for now 90 Hours and 1 minute for me to complete apparently, Christ, I don't have that sort of time these days, didn't even play any Gwent
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Post by theguy on Aug 10, 2023 0:37:01 GMT
Max Curse of Brotherhood
I thought this was surprisingly good. It's a 2D platformer from the 360 era. You have a magic marker you can use to manipulate certain parts of the game world. Drawing vines, raising terrain, shooting fire etc. At first I thought it was just going to be a cheap gimmick, the game wasn't doing much with the idea but it grows and leads to some really nice gameplay where you use them all in neat ways to get through the levels. Some quite good stuff, runs a few hours.
I was impressed by the end. It's definitely lacking in areas, story is as basic as can be, bgm is often dull and repetitive, it's a bit floaty and sometimes it can be a little fiddly drawing on a controller, but I could overlook most of it honestly.
One of the trophies also glitched for me, the final one for finding the collectibles. It bothered me but the solution was a whole new playthrough. You'd have to be a sad git to go through the whole game again just for the trophy.
So I went through the game again for the trophy.
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Duffman5
Junior Member
big cook, little cook welcome to our cafe
Posts: 1,332
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Post by Duffman5 on Aug 10, 2023 11:00:17 GMT
Alan Wake remastered,ps5: signal dlc. VERY poor with way to many enemies, didn't enjoy. 3/10. Last bit of dlc to go and then I will be done with Wake, the game and experience is so much poorer than I remember on 360. Finished The Writer dlc yesterday, very slightly better than the signal but overall poor. 4/10. I have expunged AW from the PS5 and it will never return!
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wunty
Full Member
Pastry Forward
Posts: 6,437
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Post by wunty on Aug 10, 2023 11:03:00 GMT
Aww that's a shame Duff. Weirdly I was the opposite. I was cool on AW when I first played on the 360, and enjoyed it a lot more when I went through the remastered version last year.
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Post by theguy on Aug 10, 2023 11:42:14 GMT
I have fond memories of Alan Wake and have been meaning to replay it. Wonder if I end up disliking it as much. I know even at the time, a lot of people weren't fond of the flashlight combat but I didn't mind it. Even played that little spinoff game they did and remember enjoying that.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2023 14:51:40 GMT
I’m kind of with Duff. Loved it on 360. Bought the remaster on a sale (it didn’t really look like enough of an improvement to purchase at full price). Didn’t find it to have aged well at all. Not just the shooting mechanics. The loop was just kind of boring. Didn’t get very far at all.
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