Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines The horribly-janky-but-cult-following-means-mods-make-it-way-better game that was built on an alpha version of the Half-Life 2 engine. The latest Unofficial Patch (10?) basically means it doesn't crash any more, which is nice. I loved this game at the time, despite its infuriatingly regular crashing. But I'd forgotten one important thing; there's a boss fight toward the end where if you have a melee build character, you are basically screwed, because the boss is a flier. Other than that, it was an amusing ride going through as a Malkavian (for those with even less knowledge of V:tM than I, Malkavians are basically insane, and the conversation options reflect that...) but I missed a couple of things that nearly had me going back and trying again. Plus, some of the music is awesome.
Recently finished Mass Effect: Andromeda, and I don't think it deserves all the flak it got. I enjoyed it, and I for one am hoping they'll put out another one. There's still more stories to be told in Andromeda, and I would really like to experience them.
Boston Dynamics Atlas robot put me in a retro mode and I fired up Portal 2. Not as long or as hard as I remembered it being, but still really enjoyed it especial Cave Johnson.
About 3 months after release Andromeda got a 'mega patch' that mostly fixed the wonky animations and models as well as ironing out a lot of the worst bugs. Of course three months is much, much too late late to make the game functional, it was also the last thing Bioware Montreal did before papa EA walked in with the pistol. The patch didn't change the fact that it was a story I found uninteresting featuring characters I didn't get invested in (Clan Nakmor excepted, Drak and family were outstanding), which is what really killed Andromeda stone dead before it was even released.
Return of the Obra Dinn - masterpiece/10 A brilliant concept, brilliantly executed. It's so well thought out, I'm genuinely amazed. The environmental design is impeccable and the visuals are simply gorgeous, a real technical achievement. Just look at it: Through the lo-fi aesthetic it manages to convey a few surprisingly gruesome scenes. Spoiler: slightly spoiler-ish screenshot for one of the deaths early on in the game (faces deliberately avoided) This game has so many awe-inspiring setpieces I'd love to post screenshots of, but I really don't want to spoil (even partially) the experience of seeing them the first time yourself. Similarly, do try to avoid story spoilers before playing. I'd even advise against reading more in-depth reviews. If you like detective stories and/or nautical disaster tales: just get this game. It's not that expensive and you'll definitely enjoy it. I've looked at a few other reviews and the consensus seems to be that the soundtrack is great, but for some reason that's about the only part of the game I didn't enjoy so much. Otherwise, Obra Dinn is without doubt one of the best games of 2018, and one of the most unique games I've ever played. It definitely whet my appetite for more deduce-'em-ups. I've already purchased Her Story and am hoping there's more similar stuff out there.
Bad North A really cute looking, minimalist indie RTS. Did two playthroughs and really enjoyed it. It's unit micro boiled down to its essence. Looking at the terrain, anticipating enemy movements and adapting tactics to the enemy unit types. When it all goes to plan its pretty satisfying, when it doesn't but you somehow still manage to survive even more so. The unit animations in particular are very impressive, stylized but at the same time more lifelike than other RTSs (with the exception of maybe Company of Heroes). The only negative I can think of is the strange difficulty curve. For the first half to 2/3 of a playthrough the game verges on a bit too easy (once you've figured out unit strengths and weaknesses), but then the game starts throwing hordes of huge brute units at you and the margin of error suddenly becomes very small. I also feel the random island generation could be improved somewhat by putting more loot on more difficult to defend islands to add a risk-reward element to traversing the map. Right now I nearly always picked the island with the most resources. It's not a huge, long or mechanically particularly deep game... so you probably won't lose weeks of your life to it like some other RTSs. To me that's not a negative.
Assassins Creed Odyssey: 7/10 Really enjoyed this tbh. You can take your time and enjoy the open world or you can power through the storyline to the end. personally I took the roaming about doing side missions etc and the occasional main storyline mission to keep it progressing. Finished the main quests in about 100hrs of gameplay then just ran about all the islands clearing up all the missed side quests and areas. This part was a little bit cookie cutter as its incredibly easy to stealth raid a camp of 25 soldiers without being detected and move onto the next one. I enjoyed running around the islands and just watching the interactions of the locals as well ... come round a corner and there is a group of soldiers randomly fighting, run through the trees and get attacked by a random lion or bear (s), stroll through a city and just taking the view in. The game has a lot going on to make it feel immersive Only negative for me was the sailing.... absolutely pointless addition to the game. Unrealistic boat handling, fancy taking on a pirate.. nope, you have to take 4 boats on. If you take lots of damage early in a battle you have to board an enemy ship to get ship health back and not only that once you board and plunder a ship the other ships dont attack until you take command of the helm again meaning you can just sit and wait for the right moment to move again. I avoided the sailing as much as possible and I simply hit each island as I was passing early in the game and unlocked a waypoint so I could fast travel around. Overall though a pleasant experience and worth a look if you like open world stuff
Been catching up on the AC series, still have Origins and Odyssey to go. Interesting about the sailing, Black Flag was one of my favourites - even down to the phone app you could get missions started on when you didn't have time for a gaming session. Sounds like it's changed a bit from that formula.
This is my firs AC game. The series never really appealed to me until this one so cant comment on black flag. I just found the sailing as a distraction and with the flaws it has ( a boat like that shouldnt be able to turn on the spot or enemy not attacking until you get back on the helm) really spoilt the immersion factor for me. it felt very arcadey, if that makes sense, and didnt fit with the rest of the game.
It sounds very different to BF, which in itself was a very different AC as I can't remember any seafaring in any of the others in the series. I'll make it onto Odyssey at some point - played all the AC, you know pretty much what you're getting with them.
Mario vs Rabbits What a brilliant game. Didn't like the sound of it when it was explained (badly) to me, took a little while to get into it, but ended up absolutely loving it. I finished the main game and didn't realise there was the donkey Kong adventure to do for ages and ended up having to give the Switch back to my brother before I finished it, but really enjoyed it and the difference in character abilities from the main game. If you have a switch you must play this game.
FC New Dawn. We even did all of the "Dear Photographs" and "Music Player" mini quests. FC 5 has now been pretty much finished and drawn to a close in the story. The "Manbearpig" battle was hilarious, my pal and I kept shouting "EXELSIOR !". Fantastic. Really looking forward to FC6 now. Hopefully in a new place with a new story.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 8/10 Not quite sure how I feel about this game. I certainly had a lot of fun, but SPOILER ALERT finding out that Trinity was actually the result of a little known cult from a hidden town/city was a bit much - I preferred thinking it was a militant sect of Christianity as implied by Rise of the Tomb Raider. The end boss fight somehow felt quite 'small' despite being set against a solar eclipse. Also, I keep forgetting how Lara can murder groups of well equipped mercenaries with ease. The graphics are insanely good though and the scale of the large open areas is quite breathtaking. So, worth playing, but don't expect it to blow you away with the ending.
I just played through DOOM (2016), my god that soundtrack is amazing. I've been listening to it for weeks on end. It's like Rammstein and Nine Inch Nails came together for something awesomely intense and industrial. Mick Gordon is up there with Frank Klepacki for soundtracks for me now. I'm not usually a FPS player, but I liked the game a lot and I enjoyed the story it told throughout. Seriously, the soundtrack is rad as can be.
Witcher 3 Blood & Wine DLC And so it's over, I've finally finished the DLC. Was a joy to play an add-on that was so vast and had a cracking story line. I really don't know what to play next as have bought plenty of games that are unplayed, but fear that most of them will feel a bit poor in comparison.
Agreed, CDPR know how to make DLC. TBH it's been a while since I played Witcher 3, tempted to go back.
Battlefield I Single Player- 6 (or a simple 'meh') /10 Pretty enough, but as shallow as an evaporated puddle. Extremely short campaign, even at the hardest difficulty level.The length of the last bit against the Ottoman Empire is a complete joke. Only gets a 6 as I bought it for a tenner. If I had bought it for the stupidly large original price, I would be pissed. Don't care about multiplayer...
Far cry 5 andfar cry new dawn....not as bad as the reviews made out. Metro exodus, enjoyed it. Wolfenstein II next.
