Main Menu

Last game played...

Started by Keef Monkey, 11 June, 2011, 09:35:35 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

sheridan

Quote from: ThryllSeekyr on 10 August, 2015, 10:42:49 PM
You all know how fond of Slaine I am.

Oh?  I hadn't realised ;-)

Keef Monkey


CheechFU

Quote from: Keef Monkey on 11 August, 2015, 04:29:14 PM
Quote from: CheechFU on 11 August, 2015, 12:49:22 PM
this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qT53AJ6I1C0

This looks very much like the kind of madness I can get behind.
It is very good. Normally I get quite frustrated by constant death and no checkpoint saves but I played this for hours. I spent ages throwing my sword at a guy from a balcony above, leaping down and grabbing his machine gun in mid air and shooting his buddies just because it looked cool.
The story mode is really good too

pictsy

I have been playing God of War the original for the first time.  It was part of a bundle of games I got for my recent birthday (to enlarge my PS2 and Wii collections).  Ultimately it is proving to be unable to live up to the hype that has surrounded it over the last decade.

It looks pretty good.  Not fantastic, but good.  The bloody violence is meaningless to me, neither adding or detracting.  Nevertheless, the game is presented well.  Having not completed it yet I can't comment on the story but so far it's not anything special.  Far from it.

Despite being visually polished, it's gameplay is not.  The worst aspect has to be the platforming, which is atrocious.  It is clumsily implemented, mainly due to the uncontrollable camera angle.  Without a consistent camera view or the ability to adjust view, judging distances and heights becomes tiresomely awkward.  Some of the puzzle solving and combat is hampered by this as well.

The combat is clunky and maintaining a nice flow of movement in a mob of enemies is an exercise in frustration rather than enjoyment.  The in and out animations are too slow for the fast pace this game is clearly trying to go for.  I am left with a slightly less satisfying experience of juggling, death by a thousand cuts or finding simple exploits.  With a more flowing animation set that allows for smooth transition between move sets (including dodging) and the ability to cancel out a move (which happens only when Kratos is hit - it seems) would have made the game more interesting and presented an interesting skill challenge.

The magic is poorly implemented as well.  The thunderbolt is largely useful on a conditional basis, either during platforming in range of zombie archers or against larger enemies that come in small numbers.  The madusa head is my least favourite.  Seemingly a piece of crowd control, it leaves Kratos too open to attack and the necessity to smash the stone enemies can lead you into a wall of swords.  Against one or two enemies it lacks purpose as it uses up too much magic which is essential for the Area of Effect spell.  The Area of Effect spell is good.  Excellent for crowd control in desperate situations, but greedy on the magic bar.  As the game progresses I am relying heavily on combat and I am fighting against an intuitive reaction on how to approach the combat.

The game is annoying me more and more the further I progress through, which is a terrible shame as it starts really well.  The beginning of the game is great fun.  Taking down the hydra and good portions of Athens compliment the strengths of the gameplay mechanics.  For me the turning point was the Oracle of Athens hanging from a rope, berating me constantly as I solve the puzzle and complete the awkward platforming.  Rather shamefully, I cheered out loud when I failed the platforming segment and she fell from the rope with a splat on the ground.  I couldn't believe how irritating that was.  From that moment on, the interesting encounters with enemies seemed to be replaced with lazy mob placements.

I'm still reserving judgement until I complete the game as things may improve in the latter part, to be in line with the strong start it had.  I hope it does.  I would like to come out of the experience and say:
"It's a good game with a strong start, faltering middle and strong ending.  Gameplay is unpolished, combat lacks balance but is still presented with engaging visuals."  That is what I hope to say as I think that is the best I possibly could say.

Thankfully, I have been informed that many of these issues were addressed in subsequent games and I would be perfectly willing to give them a chance if that's the case.  I am really looking forward to playing Devil May Cry afterwards, partly to compare the two games.

ThryllSeekyr

I have one of the God of War games on PSthree (I think...or else it's for the PStwo, I will look some time later!) and stopped playing after I had to fight this impassable Medusa who is kind of part slug or worm. She was impossible to beat and just when thought I was getting somewhere. It would throw me another curve and make it harder.

The Enigmatic Dr X

I'm on the last boss fight in Arkham Asylum, and am interspersing with Rage Replay.

Man, Asylum is a piece of piss compared to Underwurlde.
Lock up your spoons!

Satanist

Black Ops 3 - Played some of the beta last night and have to say COD may have won me back. Its now a very fast paced game and although its a guaranteed way to get yourself killed running along a wall and boosting off it just feels cool. Its hard to judge how it will be in FFA but I reckon I could adapt my previous camptastic tactics to this one quite well. I think this will go on my Santa list.
Hmm, just pretend I wrote something witty eh?

JamesC

Having got fed up with Arkham Knight I loaded up Sleeping Dogs Definitive Edition last night.

This is more like it! I bloody loved this game first time around and am really looking forward to playing it through again. The writing is fantastic, as is the whole look and atmosphere of the game. The characters all feel like distinct, separate entities and are totally convincing. One of the best examples I can think of of a game handling a large ensemble cast.
All that and they still manage to keep the cut scenes short and sweet and the gameplay at the forefront.

Hawkmumbler

Still on Subnautica. Truely the game that keeps on giving with a massive update that provides with far greater custamisability for ones base. It's awesome to contrust a veritable city under water, surrounded by giant Reefbacks and showls of Peepers. Such an aisthetically pleasing game, can't wait for the updates with new creatures (but unless i'm mistaken, those obnoxious and hard to shake of Sand Sharks are new editions).

Keef Monkey

Finished playing through an arcadey shootery thing called Velocity 2X on the Vita (think it's also on PS4 and coming to XB1 very soon).

It's sort of a speedrun-focussed spaceship shooter but with third person on-foot sections where they've done a really great job of keeping the same sort of mechanics and flow they use for the spaceship stages. Leads to some cool stuff - boss fights where you have to enter parts of them on foot to weaken them was a bit of a highlight.

As it got more complicated I started to resent the extra obstacles and things designed to slow your progress (never liked having my flow interrupted!) but overall I was really impressed with it.

Just picked up the Rare Replay collection on XB1 so looking forward to checking out a bunch of that stuff - I think I've only every played a couple of the games included before.

CheechFU


The Enigmatic Dr X

Quote from: Keef Monkey on 21 August, 2015, 02:53:39 PM
Finished playing through an arcadey shootery thing called Velocity 2X on the Vita (think it's also on PS4 and coming to XB1 very soon).

It's sort of a speedrun-focussed spaceship shooter but with third person on-foot sections where they've done a really great job of keeping the same sort of mechanics and flow they use for the spaceship stages. Leads to some cool stuff - boss fights where you have to enter parts of them on foot to weaken them was a bit of a highlight.

As it got more complicated I started to resent the extra obstacles and things designed to slow your progress (never liked having my flow interrupted!) but overall I was really impressed with it.

Sold!

To the guy with a game less vita
Lock up your spoons!

Professor Bear

Colony Wars: Red Sun on PS1 - a hoary old space shooter, swinging all the way over to the other end of the difficulty scale from the previous two games to be more arcade-y.  Good fun, and I'm surprised there hasn't been an accessible and easy to play shooter of this kind on current or last gen consoles yet.

Cyclone on ZX Spectrum - likewise I'm surprised there hasn't been a game like this.  Fly a chopper into a storm and rescue civilians, pick up cargo, drop it off at base, repeat - all while avoiding the constantly-moving storm and gale force winds that will crash your chopper if you get too close.  Deceptively simple, but satisfying once you get into it.

Sheltered on pc - an enjoyable enough resource-management game that uses deliberately lo-fi looks to good effect, but its limitations are its undoing, as it gets old around the seventh time your kids shit themselves to death and you chop them up for "rations" and bum the survivors out until it kills them.  It needs more explicit "down time" moments for the player to juggle tasks and resources, but as it is, every playthrough is just a "keep playing until everyone dies" experience.

Fallout Shelter on Android - I may be slightly addicted to this by now.  It's like the aforementioned Sheltered, only with longer breaks between the moments that demand your full attention (attacks from outside the shelter or sudden fires), so it feels like you're in control of the game rather than just barely balancing the various elements.  Micromanaging your characters is kept to a minimum, which is something welcome to the growing genre of shelter management titles.

ThryllSeekyr

Quote from: Scolaighe Ó'Bear on 21 August, 2015, 11:31:48 PM

Sheltered on pc - an enjoyable enough resource-management game that uses deliberately lo-fi looks to good effect, but its limitations are its undoing, as it gets old around the seventh time your kids shit themselves to death and you chop them up for "rations" and bum the survivors out until it kills them.  It needs more explicit "down time" moments for the player to juggle tasks and resources, but as it is, every playthrough is just a "keep playing until everyone dies" experience.


Have you worked out how to build another room to make more room for a toilet as well as a shower and extra sleeping bags or beds. excellent retro - pixelated graphics as well.

ThryllSeekyr

Finally got one of my earlier Middle-Earth - Shadow of Mordor videos uploaded to You-Tube.


Be warned this one starts out looking like I'm about to play a game of Elite-Dangerous, but I change my mind for some reason.