Ashwalkers was a free download so I tried it out. Something a bit different but I didn't realise the premise of the game meant multiple playthroughs are absolutely necessary to see the multiple endings for the game and get a little more out of it on each of the 30-odd playthroughs. It sounded like a bit of a grind to me. Not my cuppa tea really. Ashen-faced/10.
That's rather sad, if it can't mount 4 Gauss Rifles and a PPC can it truly be called an Annihilator? I know Mechwarrior 5 is set before the Clan Invasion, but you would think the chance to have the Ghost Bear hero mech with 5 Gauss Rifles was too good to miss.
SOMA Great stuff! Like most games I find really enjoyable, this has a great plot and is very submersive. Makes me hate bioshock even more!!
Picked up Gris for the Switch in a sale, and managed to steal some time to play it. Absolutely loved it, but it was over pretty quick - would have felt short-changed at full price, I reckon.
Which I have now obtained on NG+. I'll go for the score attack and then call it complete, probably try and pick up the dreaming achievements as and when, as they're more of a grind.
It Takes Two *Spoilers Ahead* My son and I have been playing on Monday nights when my wife takes my daughter to ballet. We finally finished it tonight. My overall impression is that I liked it very much, but I have mixed feelings about it. The game looks great and is quite a bit of fun to play, and there aren't a ton of co-op games. Playing this with my 9-year old was a real treat. I'm really grateful for the time we've had to bond on Monday nights. I really can't overstate how much that has meant to me. The game also introduces a ton of different mechanics and mini games throughout the levels, so you're never going to get bored. There's always a new, novel thing around the corner. But, the constantly changing mechanics also add a layer of frustration and unintended difficulty. It can feel like you're never given enough time with one mechanic to truly master it. I will add that my playthrough was with a Steam Controller and I had to switch the left touchpad back and forth between joystick emulation and trackball emulation. Neither quite worked well enough all of the time and some of the "slide and aim and shoot" all at once boss fights were nearly impossible because of the Steam Controller. I hate cutscenes and generally dislike quicktime events, both of which happen quite a bit in this game. I don't like to feel like I'm watching a movie when playing a game or that my inputs are just a token effort at interaction. Like, is there really a fail state if I don't press 'X' in order to move in closer to my wife during the last cutscene? Give me a break. Also, the story is weird. Like, really weird. And it takes some pretty bizarre turns along the way. The parents are going to get divorced, so a couple's therapy book transforms them into dolls and forces them to participate in his therapy activities as a way of forcing them to fall back in love. This would make him the antagonist right? And his personality is awful, truly grating, and he's done this to the parents against their will, so he's the antagonist, right? Right?! Nope. In the sense of the "hero's journey," the parents never get the opportunity to refuse the call to adventure. They're stuck and stay stuck until the book decides they're done. Again, the book should be the antagonist here. The parents at one point think the best course of action is destroying their daughter's toy so that they can make her cry because they believe her tears will turn them back into themselves. While they're dolls, their human bodies go into a comatose state, but their daughter doesn't really pick up on this or call emergency services. She just thinks her parents are being assholes and ignoring her or taking naps or something. It's weird and not really believable. At the end, the daughter decides to run away, but it's clearly a plot device for the parents to go collect her for a touching moment. Given everything that is structurally bad with the plot, I actually wish that the parents defeated the magical book and got divorced in the end. I would actually like a story about how it's okay that not every relationship works out and how both parties can do their best and even be forced into some extreme circumstance where they have to work together, but they can still decide that the best thing for all parties is to amicably separate because that can be healthier for everyone, including their daughter. That's a real scenario plenty of children and parents face. That's a story that's never told in a positive or realistic way. That story would make sense, given the premise and the circumstances their thrust into. The seeds are planted for that story outcome, but the payoff isn't there. Instead we get a cliche, expected ending we've seen a million times, except it isn't satisfying because it doesn't feel earned. But all that said, I do recommend it. It's a ton of fun and a great game to play with someone you love. Just don't expect the story to be structurally satisfying.
Far Cry 6 It was a Far Cry. Must admit I preferred 5 and the kinda spin off of that tbh. Not any replayability for me unfortunately. Now to think of the next PS4 game to pick up. Not been on the pc for a while, been waiting to upgrade the GPU and finally get around to Cyberpunk and a run through of the ME remasters.
I preferred 6. Well, I preferred 6 for single player. I really liked the story, it was far more believable than 5. Though 5 was certainly funnier (Testy Festy !). And yeah, once you do the missions retaking checkpoints gets old fast. Just don't buy The Last Of Us 2, unless you fancy slitting your wrists any time soon.
Well I think I preferred 5 - tbh I can't remember too much. I remember not liking the forced story move along parts in which you had no say whatsoever. I do remember a loading screen of a wolf in woodland and some particularly nice music I would have liked as a background to the PS4 UI but that's a side thing. As for Last of us 2. Yup, I loved the first, it got to me a bit I must say. LoU2 hasn't appealed at all, think I'll be avoiding permanently. Edit: Just remembered. Next game either RDR2 (that I started but never finished for some reason) or Horizon Zero Dawn that they gave away free some time ago.
Wolfenstein New Order, Fergus timeline. Might go back and find missing collectibles but not sure about the full other timeline for Wyatt, or on Uber. The completionist in me wants to, but the realist says there are other games to play. I don't really see the point of second playthroughs unless things are markedly different. Becomes a chore. Enjoyed the first pass though.
Horizon: Zero Dawn (and the Frozen Wilds expansion) Where to start? Hmm. Well, HZD (I shortened the game to HZD to save me time typing out 'Horizon: Zero Dawn' each time, because it's quite a long name and I don't want to have to keep repeating myself, though perhaps I used up more time typing up this explanation than I probably would have if I had just typed the game's full name, but we'll never know) is drop dead gorgeous from the get go. I first thought it was on the Frostbite engine, but it's not (look it up on Wikipedia if you care). Seeing the robot animals wandering around is excellent - a lot of thought went into their animation. The story is immediately compelling and is perhaps the main factor in me making the effort to finish the game. Originally I bought it on the PS4 (long since sold on evilBay) but using a controller made me ragequit. Fortunately, the PC release gave me a chance to do something other than ending up staring at the ground every time I got into combat. Speaking of... The combat is simultaneously great and ****ING ANNOYING. Not going to lie, there were more than a few times I shouted something along the lines of "WHY DID YOU DO THAT YOU DUMB ****ING BITCH?!?!" when Aloy dodged in the wrong direction, got caught on a bit of scenery, or took an annoyingly long amount of time to recover before getting knocked for six. I'm actually surprised my keyboard's still working after slamming my hand down on it a couple of times, to be honest. Knocking components off the roboanimals is satisfying though. Character progression is amazingly well done: at the start, provided you haven't been a wimp and actually chosen a decent game difficulty (I chose the hardest mode I could, though harder modes are unlocked upon completion), taking down a single robot is hard work and you have to take your time, but towards then end, you're leaping around firing three arrows at a time into the weak spots of huge enemies in slomo, all while dodging like a thing that dodges a lot. Some of the battles are nothing short of epic. The end boss encounter of The Frozen Wilds in particular is a climatic event, which if you play through, you'll be thinking 'HOLY **** am I going to die' as it turns up and goes on for a long time, having you non-stop dodging while trying to make time to hit weak spots. As it is, I would be scoring the game 8/10, but we get to an issue for which I'm knocking a point off. And that point is lost for having a running theme through the WHOLE game that women are amazing and men are usually bastards who deserve what they get, not to mention that Aloy is a Mary Sue. For example, at one point, Aloy is told that the world is a sphere, not flat, to which she responds "Why would you think that I think the world is flat? It casts a circular shadow on the Moon*.". **** off, game. It would've been nice to actually have Aloy act surprised, or even deride the person who told her. Hell, if I were a caveman (and I may as well be), I'd think the world was flat. Some people still do. So, the overall game score is... 7/10 I definitely recommend playing it just to see the landscapes and animal robots, as the detail that has gone into both is extraordinary. The story is good, too. And I will be getting Forbidden West when (if) it releases on PC, even if I have to endure more 'Wahmens is good, men is bad' ********. *I would also like to point out that the Earth would cast a circular shadow on the Moon if it were a disc, so take that, Miss Smartypants.
This has cheered me up this morning! I would like some other geometric analyses when you get the time.
Quake II: 7/10 Ended up playing this all the way through today. Initially tried to play it on Nightmare difficulty, but my reactions aren't what they used to be, so I thought 'sod it' and blasted through on Easy, I had to use a mod so it would play nice with modern hardware - though it made me smile when a little 320*240 window popped up in the top left corner of my 4K TV. Was a terrific piece of nostalgia. I played this in my first year of secondary school ~25 years ago. Gameplay's sharp and snappy. However, my progression was occasionally hampered by rather esoteric game design, or the primitive graphics resulting in me missing subtle ways forward. Also, I got to see the pimp tank commander and the ID gallery for the first time...
Yeah, I've run through the sequel once. I enjoyed it - it's still a really good game - but it didn't grab me in quite the same way as the original.
Hmm, definitive edition 3.99 on epic at the moment. May be worth a punt even though I'm not sure when I'd get around to it.
Did you play it in software mode? I mean, I totally get that, because those pixels are gorgeous, but there are better ways to play it. If you have an RTX card, there is a path traced version of it available for free even.
Nah, modders have made it play nice with modern hardware. And I don't have an RTX card, so no fancy smancy raytracing for me.
I have had Dishonored in my library for about 2 years and still haven't played it. It's on the list. The list is.....long.
