Those are rookie numbers, my "Games Wot I Never Played/Finished" list stretches back over 30 years...
The Ascent - completed it the day before the expansion dropped on 18th August (which i had no clue about) so went straight into that so had a few extra hours of gameplay and some new weapons/armour - now playing new game+ to run through the main campaign again but with all my goodies intact to make it much much easier than first time around
Yeah it looks really cool. But you can't imagine what a total ****show my back garden is right now, I've got about a hundred things to sort out before winter. Gaming is the first thing under the bus these days, it seems
Couldn't agree more with these comments. Need (to make?) more time for some pixel-based fun and actually enjoy some of the titles I've accumulated. The big ones, not the forgettable arcade types. Instead of putting time into and finishing Reveal The Deep 5/10 - good enough, but story was a bit opaque and the slow, slogging underwater movements start to grate after you have to retrace your steps a few times. The fact I completed it without even finding all the clues made it seem an even hollower victory.
Doom Eternal (and Ancient Gods 1 & 2): 6.9/10 WARNING: probably spoilers ahead, but there again, the game's all about 360 noscoping, so why are you bothered? I'll be honest up front: I played this on Easy. Why? Because I didn't want to spend the rest of my life trying to complete the game (as I get older I feel worse for time 'wasted' on games), and thank **** I did, because even on easy, the game caught me offguard from time to time, and I played Doom 2016 on Nightmare. I did get to the third or fourth level on Nightmare last year, but lost interest, probably because the only time I could play the game was in the evening, and I found it would stop me sleeping so well from the sheer concentration needed. So, in summary, this game is difficult: then The Ancient Gods steps it up even more. So the good? Very pretty and very shooty! This ain't your tacticool military shooter, that's for sure - but there again, you already knew that. There's also a semi-interesting story that's a bit more involved this time round. Once you get into the flow of things, you do feel like an unstoppable badass, bouncing around and firing off ammunition in all directions. Performance is also incredible - I played at 4K on the equivalent of a 1080Ti on maximum settings and it was buttery smooth. The meh? A lot of platforming this time round. Personally I could take or leave it, but I imagine for some it could be a turnoff. My major gripe about the game is the 'Rock, Paper, Scissors' dynamic it has. Doom 2016 was more pure in its implementation of shooting demons, but now enemies typically have a particular method of killing them. This gets worse in The Ancient Gods DLCs, with some of the enemies only susceptible to one type of weapon mod - seriously, Spirits and Stone Imps can go **** themselves. I recently played through most of Doom 3 BFG Edition* and that had it correct - just the right amount of weapons, which paid off if you set up hotkeys for them. In Doom Eternal, I think I would need a minimum of two extra fingers per hand to make the most of all the arsenal available. Flame Belch? Chainsaw? Selecting grenade types? Slayer Sword/Doom Hammer? 14 weapons (most with mods for differing alternate fire modes)? I personally found it a little overwhelming at some points and had the occasional brain freeze where I would just think 'Err, what button do I need to press now?'. The weapon wheel's slowing time effect was used on more than one occasion while I figured out what weapon I needed to use next. There again, maybe I'm getting slow in my old age - the speedrunning videos are impressive to watch. Eventually I got a handle on setting groups of demons on fire, lobbing a couple of grenades and then chainsawing something for more ammo while everything died in an explosion of armour shards around me (at least glory/chainsaw kills allow you to be invulnerable for the duration now). The Meathook on the double barreled shotgun (or DBG if you're down with the kool kids) is a great inclusion though, and is a good example of something that is simple yet effective: nothing like zooming into that superheavy demon and gibbing him with a point blank blast. I have to hand it to Doom Eternal - it is the very definition of Heavy Metal, more so than its predecessor. And the game does have some truly 'HOLY ****' moments. Anyone who isn't impressed after seeing the first titan strolling around a city a few minutes into the game is dead to me. The pinnacle for me was the start of end level of The Ancient Gods Part 2. It is the Final Battle(TM) between Heaven and Earth versus Hell, AND IT IS EPIC. I stood for several minutes watching huge mechs and titans battling it out like some sort of Godzilla battle, only wayyy better. The ending is bittersweet though - the last boss is comparatively easy to some of the other battles, and it would've been nice to have started it off with a mech vs evil mech battle. Still, even Doom's lesser boss battles are better than many other games. OVERALL SUMMARY: Worth getting in a sale just to see shiny graffix (without the need for a silly expensive GPU), listen to some sweet tunes, and to spend some one-on-one time with that unlucky demon you've selected for a glory kill. And the story is about as 40K as you're going to get without officially being endorsed by GeeDubs. Definitely happy I played it. *Must do a review of this too...
Yeh I got that sleep thing with Doom 2016 now you mention it, I dialed it up to Nightmare and if I played it on an evening, I couldn't settle down. My brain was just deep fried in adrenaline. There's something to be said for turning games down to easy if you just finished a day at work. You're only in competition with yourself, at the end of the day, and the point is to enjoy it. Doom Eternal looks like a slog just for the amount of extra levelling/progress mechanics they added. I already felt Doom 2016 suffered for having any of that stuff in it, I'd have much preferred if with no collectables, no progress trackers, and all the weapons maxed from the get-go (or unlocked on a static progression ladder on level completions). It's such an over-the-top blast, why try to RPG-ify the experience of ripping demons in half?
Mass Effect 1 (as part of the Legendary Edition): 7/10 Finished this off earlier than expected today. 'Twas a nice little romp down memory lane, but looking back at it now, it's clear Bioware were still getting to grips with storytelling. Also, apparently I killed 1,246 enemies during the course of this playthrough. Though technically the enemies I used a combination of lift and push on may technically have been okay - as they disappeared off into the horizon. Back in the day I'd have given it 8 or 9, but we're in the future now. Going to briefly fire up Mass Effect 2 now...
That's my next play ME LE. When I feel able to concentrate enough that is. Will be fun to relive them.
Elden Ring!!! 597h played, across 6 characters, and I finally got to the final boss and beat it (I lost count of the number of attempts it took!).
Finished the main storyline of Horizon Zero Dawn. Wow, what a story. And the little bit after the credits, oo-oo! I'm going round and mopping up the other quests, errands and whatnot, used the power cells so that should help out a bit. Forbidden West is on it's way, bargain at £21 from fleabay.
Does that mean you gave up midway through with your 5 older characters? You can (almost) always respec in ER if you feel you've made a mistake when leveling up, and, of course - you can 'alter' like 80% of the weapons to make them play into your strengths (like, changing the scaling of a weapon from STR to INT, or assigning it a different ash of war, etc.). The spirit summons are kind of broken too, IMO... p.s. I hope Malenia didn't crushed your will during each of those 5 attempts...
FW on the way for me from the jungle too. Was £25 for me but they gave me a £7 off £20 pick up so £18 does me nicely Agree about the story and the cliffhanger, most tasty. Took a while for me to get into it but it's hooked me well and truly. Done everything bar an ultra hard run which I have just started
No sign of when Forbidden West is coming to PC, and I'm not about to buy a PS5 just for that one game. Booooooooo.
I played through Zero Dawn a few weeks back and really enjoyed it - didn't realise the new one was console only. Bah!
Pfft, I'm still rocking a PS4 I think Frozen Wilds made it a complete game for me, not sure if I'd have liked it quite as much otherwise.
Nope... I did have 2 chars early on, one magic user and one melee focused, The other 4 are all from playing co-op with different people, using the amazing Seamless co-op mod... https://www.nexusmods.com/eldenring/mods/510 I could have used the same char with all of them but it was easier to keep progression and relative character power levels in-line by having separate characters.
