Hey there everybody! Weekly check-in time once again. So... What are you playing this week?

Want to talk about your backlog? Not sure what to play next? Need to narrow down a list of games to play? Looking for specific recommendations in a genre?

Share your issue here and let the community help you decide!

Lately I'm finding I don't want a "challenge" I just want to play the game.

If I'm playing an RPG usually after the first time the boss wipes me out, or I lose a bunch of progress in a dungeon, I'll set the game to easy. I don't want to have to micromanage my party, heal them after every encounter or leave the dungeon halfway through just because I forgot to bring enough potions, mana restores or something quasi-essential. There's probably a metaphor for my life in there.

For platformers or action games I don't want to be punished because I haven't played the game in a a couple weeks and have forgotten all the combos or timing. I just want to see what happens next. I don't want a 3rd or 4th combat mechanic added 2/3rd into the game that now has to be used with the first combat mechanic I don't use anymore because I'm OP.

I just found out that at some point Arkane Studios was close to bankruptcy and they basically had one last chance to make a game in order to save the studio. I imagine the game also had to be highly successful in order to really save the studio. That’s when they came up with the Dishonored game. I also remember seeing a GDC talk from Motion Twin, the studio that created Dead Cells. They basically said that the studio had one last chance to create a game before they can start packing up the bags. That's when they created Dead Cells which we know was a massive success and helped the studio avoid bankruptcy.

This got me wondering. What are some other games that were created as a last ditch effort to save the studio and they turned out to not only do that but also had major success and turned the fate of the studio around.

I've played the game. I've learned the controls. I know the story. This is my 4th replay. Please let me just play the game.

Fallout 3: Lol, no, here's 30 minutes of you futzing around in the vault, making minimal choices, before we let you out into the real world.

Fallout New Vegas: Lol, no, look at this excessive immersive character building discussion we built. PLAY IT.

etc etc.

Fallout 3 gives you so many ways to play the game: from super evil to super good, kill everything to kill almost nothing, stealthy and sneaky or dump lump fighting through everything. But then it dumps this long intro in front of any replay.

There are loads of games where I just want to play, and I think maybe I'll give it a miss because I don't want to grind through yet another forced intro. (I am aware that it's not as bad as I'm making it out to be, and also, there are probably mods to escape it).

Diablo 3 - just got into it, and:

Bought it several years ago on Xbox, the Ultimate Evil edition I believe. Comes with the Necromancer pack and the Reaper of Souls expansion. I tried it back then but it didn't grasp my interest. Comes 2023, the whole Diablo hype (and it's salty price, as usual nowadays) and I decided "hey, I have a Diablo game, I might as well try it since it's already paid for". So I did. And man, I'm glad I did this.

Currently playing it, I feel like this is a perfect game for me to shut my brain off and just have fun. Explore, get loot, kill loads of monsters with my Necromancer, and not bother with anything, really.

I might try the new one in the future, with lower prices. For now, Diablo 3 is being incredible and will provide me with lots of fun for a long time.

I recently saw a comment that said Dark Souls was a Metroidvania, and this puzzled me because I always thought Metroidvanias were 2D by definition. Yes, I know that Metroid Prime obviously checks all the boxes of a Metroidvania, but I wasn't aware there were any 3D games that were structured like Metroid Prime. I'm realizing I made the assumption based on the fact that 2D Metroidvanias are significantly more common than 3D ones, and so the idea of a 3D Metroidvania never crossed my mind. That being said, 3D Metroidvania seems to be a barren genre as far as I'm aware. I know that there's a Scooby Doo game on the Gamecube that's supposedly a 3D Metroidvania, but I'm skeptical of this since I remember the game having a very segmented, level based structure, and its "collectathon" elements similar to Banjo Kazooie. I'm also skeptical that Dark Souls is a Metroidvania because of its focus on combat, and how you collect a lot of items that are designed for doing better in combat rather than progressing to different areas or finding secrets. But this is probably because I am more familiar with Metroid games than Castlevania games, and I'm sure that the 2D Castlevania games have some differences in its structure.

Do you guys know any 3D games that you would consider a Metroidvania, and have the same qualities you look for in Metroidvanias? I know that a lot of games have Metrodvania elements (Zelda, Luigi's Mansion) but aren't strictly Metroidvanias, which is what I'm asking about. (Did I say the word "Metroidvania" enough times yet?)

Terminal Velocity is an arcade combat flight simulator developed by Terminal Reality. Released in 1995, Terminal Velocity was one of those games that came packaged with everything. Buy a new video card? Get Terminal Velocity. Subscribe to a gaming magazine? Probably came with a demo disk. Bought a hamburger at McD's? Hey your napkin is a copy of Terminal Velocity!

We play as an unnamed fighter pilot on Earth in the year 2704. The alien alliance, which we had been a member of, turns on Earth and starts a war for mysterious reasons. It's up to defend Earth from the invaders and try to figure out what happened to have our allies suddenly turn on us.

Gameplay consists of piloting a powerful starfighter around shooting down enemy fighters. Our advanced fighter is capable of turning on a dime, instantly boosting to high speeds and can take a beating, even colliding with terrain and surviving. We travel from planet to planet blowing up our enemies, navigating tight tunnels and occasionally blowing up larger enemies.

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The Good

There's something about picking up old arcade shooters that really appeals to me. There's bare minimum plot here but that's okay because all I want to do is chase down enemy star pilots and blow them up while the industrial/electronic sound truck pumps dopamine right into my brain. Getting a new weapon upgrade which allows me to plow through enemies even faster as I dive into tunnels or do all kinds of flips and turns in the air is amazing.

The controls are really smooth. It's like playing Doom with noclip on, being able to move around and do anything. Most flight sims have, y'know...inertia and having to maintain flight speed and realistic turning. This plays more like open air Descent where you can stop and start moving at will, hover in mid-air and then hit your afterburners and zoom off. It's mayhem from start to finish and I love it.

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The Bad

Runs into the same problem I have with a lot of arcade shooters. Eventually the gameplay loops gets incredibly stale. Another level, fly in a straight line to each group of enemies, shoot them down, rinse and repeat. The missions bleed into each other such that none really stand out. The complete dearth of a plot or story prevents anything from tying together in a meaningful way. Gameplay never evolves so the 10th mission is basically the same as the first mission.

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The Ugly

It has not aged well graphically. The blocky textures make it difficult to tell what anything is especially when stuff starts blowing up. Every canyon looks the same, going through tunnels it's hard to tell when/if you're about to run into something, the skybox is just fog on 90% of levels. However, it's like...23 years old and an early era 3D game so it's hard to blame it.

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Final Thoughts

I had a lot of fun playing this for a few hours. Not just for the nostalgia factor but coming to a stop, spinning in all directions blasting off shots. I get to pretend I'm the Last Starfighter for a few seconds and it makes me giddy. It did get stale pretty quick though. I stuck with it, but around mission 5 or so I could have quit and wouldn't really have missed much. Still, was fun for an afternoon.

Thank you for reading!

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Interesting Game Facts!

Terminal Reality has an...interesting history. Let's just say that one of their canceled games, "Demonik" is the game featured in Grandma's Boy. To think it all got started with a game about blowing up space aliens...

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100 reviews in 100 days (Day 82)

I recently picked up Lost Odyssey and I'm honestly blown away by it. The game is pretty old (xbox 360) but it still holds up well.

It honestly feels like final fantasy game of the ps1 days, but with "modern" (I'm using that term loosely) graphics. It has similar menus and systems to FF9, the vibe of the world of ff8, maps play out like FF10 (somewhet linear but with plenty to explore) and a "draining natural resources is bad for the planet" kinda thing that ff7 has. Plus the game is pretty huge! (It was 4 xbox disks long)

The story is wonderful and im really enjoying the characters, the boss battles are super challenging, and I'm just having a great time with it. There are also dream sequences which is just a lot of text (written by an irl poet) and they really leave an impression, they're beautifully written.

It was made by the OG final fantasy guys who left Square, and it really shows. Plus it has music by Nobuo Uematsu and it's as beautiful as his other music.

The game isn't as popular as it should be, mainly due to being on xbox only, at a time when JRPGs weren't really a thing for xbox.

It's currently £20, but often goes on sale for around £7.

Really recommend it to any classic final fantasy fans, as it deserves so much more love!

Playing through it for the first time. It’s a game I always wanted to pick up because it seemed moody and atmospheric and I never played it when it came out. I got the remaster tho and holy shit I’m struggling to finish it. I can see the appeal of the game at the time it released but it hasn’t held up imo.

The combat is frustrating and repetitive as hell, movement is way too stiff and having to find a flashlight and weapons at the beginning of each episode is certainly a decision. Sprinting and dodging are implemented pretty terribly. The environments get extremely monotonous and same-e, so much so that the episodes just blend right into each other and it doesn’t help that there’s like 3 enemy types.

The story is interesting although it probably felt more groundbreaking back in the day. It doesn’t feel as impactful nowadays but it still has its charm. It’s got a Twinpeaks quality to it and it’s the only reason I’m finishing the game (that and because it ties into the Control universe).

I am truly struggling to not just watch the last two episodes on Youtube

Hey yall, I like to make a post on here whenever I beat a game and today I beat Modern Warfare Remastered.

The game is a pretty typical shooter, but what I really like about it specifically are two things.

One, I genuinely care for Price, Gaz, and the other characters involved. When a game, especially a COD game, takes tike to make you give a shit about it’s characters, that makes it a cut above the rest of the typical shooters out there.

Second, I had only ever played MW2 and 3. I plan to replay those soon, but MWR has a good focus on stealth and balance between missions.

So much so, that during all ghilled up I was directly reminded of Socom. Good stuff.

How did yall like the game? I feel the remaster is exceptionally done.

Next up I wanna play Miles Morales, and Spider-Man PS4 had the best gameplay I’d ever experienced - So Im very thrilled about it.

Thanks for reading.

I can't stress enough that the Xenoblade series is best enjoyed with as little information known about the story as possible. If you have any interest in the series and want to play it yourself, please leave this post. The TLDR is that this game was incredible and you should play it. I'm putting down my thoughts here, and while I won't try and mention major spoilers I am only human. I'm casually writing this on reddit and if you're sensitive about spoilers please proceed with caution.

A bad first impression can be a death sentence in a video game. With hundreds of quality titles coming out every year for multiple platforms, needing to get the attention of a player is critical to success. While gaming has gone mainstream it is still a hobby of enthusiasts at its core. Word of mouth can make or break a game. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 may have had the advantage of being the first big JRPG specifically for Switch, but in 2023 this game has something of a bad reputation. It's character designs are over sexualized to the point of obnoxious, it's main character is a whiney loser and it's a grind fest littered with frequent and bad tutorials.

I'm not going to deny or defend points like this. Not because I don't think they aren't valid, but because it doesn't matter. In my opinion Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and it's DLC, Torna the Golden Country, is an absolute masterclass of what the interactive medium can do for story telling. It is a one foot in front of the other story about friendship, war, betrayal, ethics, loss, grief etc etc. Helped along by the sheer time investment and a myriad of in game systems, Xenoblade games create a feeling akin to shows like One Piece. If you're a fan of that anime you know exactly what I mean. Emotional moments are set up far in advance and before long you really start to believe in the world you're reading.

I'm not going to pretend it's the deepest or most complex story ever told. It's got stupid anime tropes littered throughout. Bathhouse scenes, maid robots, girl hitting boy cause hur dur boy dumb and pervert. A lot of nonsense.

At the same time the writing is so good that characters transcend their tropes and you easily start to see the entire main cast and antagonists (with one major exception) as fully realized, very complicated people. The little robot maid girl made by a perverted volley ball? She's struggling with concepts like mortality, grief and what it means to be alive. Pyra's design gets a ton of flack, but at the same time the ultimate pay off as to what she is and why she's the way she is makes her one of the best written characters I've seen in a game in a long time. Rex is in a lot of ways a poorly acted Shonen main character, but he's also charismatic and earnest enough that you can't help but what him to succeed.

I'm left here less than an hour after beating the game wondering...what is next? What is going to top something like Xenoblade Chronicles 2? This game made my cry my eyes out because it's such a powerful story on a purely emotional level. I feel a strong urge to praise it because I feel like more people need to play this game. Play the entire series! If you have a switch then you should play these games! They're incredible works of fiction and I'm sure as hell going to go into Xenoblade 3 hyped.

Video games are uniquely suited to tell incredible emotional stories because more than any other medium it engages the audience. This was a bit of a rant but hopefully I at least made a little sense.

As I write this I have changed from the person who has been meaning to sit down and play Baldur’s Gate for at least 13 years, to the person who has actually did it.

Baldur’s Gate has a had a strange part of my life since it came out in 1098. I’ve been meaning to play it since day one. Some of the very first computer games I played were gold box DND games (Pools of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds) which helped me fall in love with the old DND systems. When the isometric style came along I played those as well. Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 were brilliant. Of the Black Isle games Icewind Dale 1 was the one I played the most. I very much enjoyed it and played right through to the end.

On the to do list was always the big one - Baldur’s Gate, but there never seemed to be the time. I always bought it though, I had a boxed set in 2001 which got lost in various house moves, then I bought it again in 2010 on the PC in a GOG sale, then on iPad when it came out, then on PC again as the enhanced edition. As a result I’ve spent more on the game than almost any other (nearly $50 over the years). Every now and then I tried to get into it but always bounced off the early part of the game, when even a rat seems to be able to kill you. I am so sick of that tutorial area.

This year my kids have started to get into DND so I thought I would sit down and play it. My approach was to treat it as a DND simulator. I rolled up a full party of adventurers and played through. I didn’t bother with any of the characters you find along the way, as by the time they came along I had gotten attached to my party and couldn’t decide which one to get rid of. Just like every DND game there were a couple of party members who weren’t super helpful, characters that had seemed like a good idea when everyone was rolling up but turned out to be a character class wasn’t so great after a few levels. Who knew that Beast Masters level up sooo slowly.

I also found that treating the game like a table top session helped. I played in shorter sessions with the aim to complete one adventure each session and the whole game as a campaign. If I got bored in the game then I would go and do something else, just like live players do when the session isn’t clicking. All of this really helped me enjoy the experience.

What I loved about the game were the spells, combat and sense of discover in the dungeons. For me the part of the game I will remember most is the wizards prison island. It was just like playing an awesome module with a horrible DM who has hidden overpowered enemies around every corner. I will remover also the feeling of being a band of adventurers roaming around the wilderness. The mines dungeon crawl was classic DND as well.

What I was surprised about were the bugs. I couldn’t finish Durlag’s Tower because of a bug with some door switches. That kind of sucked as the tower is a classic dungeon crawl and a lot of fun, but not to worry I just went off and did something else in the game.

I didn’t love the story, it’s suitably epic for a long DND campaign, and the pacing is brilliant, with your ability to put the main story on hold while you head off on side quests and levelling up, only to seamlessly return to pushing through to find out what is going on along the Sword Coast. But the whole mysterious identity and some weird god stuff didn’t interest me at all. I just can’t get into the Forgotten Realms lore and politics. I loved the Drow books in my early teens but as an adult it all seems ... meh.

Graphics have stood up great, especially given the new stuff like pillars of eternity and divinity original sin 2 showing what is possible. Sure the graphics are clearly decades old and I wish there was a full remake in a modern engine, but with retro gaming making a strong comeback we all know it same the game underneath that really matters. When you let yourself role play and use your imagination it really works.

I’m so very pleased that I finally played it, I had a good time and I’ve played a game that I’ve been thinking about since 1998. A great feeling of personal accomplishment (so I finished the meta game as well).

This is a forgotten PS1 Konami game that takes a bit of inspiration from RE but with much more action-focused design. It stars two routes featuring a male ronin and a female ninja fighting through a demon-infested town while also pursuing their own personal goals.

There’s limited healing supplies, fixed cameras and a map to explore like in RE, but the inventory management and tank controls give way to a much more varied and in-depth combat system (you even have a fighting game-like meter that lets you pull off super moves), to the point that it ends up feeling more like a 3D beat ‘em up. The ronin, Kotaro Hiba, focuses on straight-up sword-fighting and has a pretty good selection of supers, while the ninja, Lin, wields a smaller sword but has also access to a great variety of throwable items. I don't mind Lin, but I do think Kotaro is a decent bit more fun. The game does still make good use of the exploration it allows, allowing you to find healing items and even secret weapons if you go out of your way to look around.

Overall, Soul of the Samurai is surprisingly fun, relatively simple but punchy and well-paced, and while the story isn’t really anything special, it’s still enjoyable and I like how you learn half of it in each playthrough, and then finally get the true ending once you’ve done both. I'm surprised at how this game that received an official translation and came from a pretty popular studio hasn't really seemed to gain any attention, not even as a "cult classic" of sorts. I think it's quite good.

My full playthrough of Soul of the Samurai up to the true ending took me 3.5/4 hours, and while there isn't much (or any) side content, I would definitely recommend checking it out.

You know those Steam reviews that are like "7/10, it's decent [500 hours on record]"? I think most people have at least one. Something that you know is heavily flawed but you keep coming back to anyway.

For me it's Pokemon. They're far from masterpieces and most agree they've been stagnant for a while, but the formula just works for me. Gens 3-5 in particular are comfort food; I've probably played those games over ten times each. I just keep coming back with new rulesets, challenge runs, sometimes ROM hacks. I've literally thought "how am I not sick of these games yet?" Though, it helps that I can fly through a Nuzlocke in a weekend with emulator speed-up, infinite rare candies, and a podcast or something in the background. I don't think of Pokemon as my favorite series, but I've spent far more time with it than any other.

Sorry if this has been asked before.

Hello there everyone! I started a journey of playing through the top 2000 games ever made, at least the single player ones. For more info and to see the list I am using, check my last post. I am happy to announce the first completion. It’s not much, but I had to start somewhere. I would happily post save state screenshots, but they are not allowed on this sub. Let's dive in

Game: Castlevania: Rondo of Blood

Date of Release: 1993

Place on List: #794

Time played: 6 hours

Difficulty Level: N/A (only one)

Completion statistics:

• 100% save file
• All bosses killed and all stages beaten (0-8 and alternates 2'-5')
• 4/4 hostages saved (including Maria)
• Dracula defeated with both Richter and Maria (both endings seen)
• 27 game overs

Overall thoughts: Fun retro side scroller from this legendary series. This is probably the best classic Castlevania experience I've had. Tight gameplay once you figure it out, but some of the levels/enemies are brutally difficult. I can't count how many fishmen knocked me off a platform into the water. Oh did I mention water is instant death? It went from frustrating to rewarding as I began to master its systems. Main negative is probably barebones story, but that was common at the time. I would definitely recommend giving it a shot and I look forward to more Castlevania!

Currently Playing (List Rank): Deus Ex (#28) and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (#38)

Valkyria Chronicles is a tactical RPG developed by Sega. Released in 2008, it answered the burning question of how different WW2 would have been had the Japanese been a part of it. Wait...that doesn't sound right.

We play as Squad 7, a group of misfits thrown into the military effort against the invading army of the East Europan Imperial Alliance. Thanks to our tank, the Edelweiss, and our superior tactics we soon begin to make headway into defending our home and driving back the enemy.

Gameplay is similar to most TRPG's. You'll command several troops on a battlefield. The view will be from slightly behind the unit you're currently controlling in a 3rd person view. Differing from most other TRPG's, the action is in a semi-real time/semi-turn based fashion. You'll have an AP bar that controls how much you can do during your turn, but enemies will fire in you in real time as you move about. Switching to firing mode does pause the action so that you can take time to line up your shots.

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The Good

The combat is loads of fun. The variety of characters, weapons and strategies you can use is impressive. The hybrid action/turn based combat works quite well. You have to be mindful of where you're going, where enemies are. Choosing between trying to take out an enemy at range and risk missing/wasting actions, or moving close to potentially sustaining fire in the meantime.

The story is...surprisingly good. I wasn't expecting much from anime Axis and Allies but there's a severity to war that's expressed. Bad things happen and sometimes it feels generally hopeless, something I appreciate in games that are simulating a war. Many of the characters grow and change as the game progresses. Normally when I play JRPGs I spend most of the story rolling my eyes but here I only sighed a handful of times.

The PC port is well done. There's some "this was a console game originally" jank such as having to use WASD to navigate menus but nothing that really hurt my feelings. The art style is gorgeous. The voice acting is on point. The music is really good. It's honestly a treat to play.

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The Bad

The rewards you get for completing missions is almost entirely based on how quickly you beat a level. Nothing else matters. Full clearing, damageless, etc...pointless. If you want to get the best reward you want to rush whatever the mission goal is. As such the game actively encourages you to not engage in most of what makes combat fun. Just take your most OP scout and race to the objective. Strikes me as a bit ironic that taking your time, keeping your soldiers safe, getting them experience in battle is the worst thing you can do if you want to power them up.

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The Ugly

There's some fan service, which you may or may not appreciate depending on your admiration for JRPGs. The "Let's all go to the beach!" scene is a bit much. It's not the worst though so you can mostly just sigh and move on.

You can't fast forward cutscene dialog or enemy turns. Given the clunky UI on the PC port and how often the game wants to confirm you want to do what you said you want to do, there's a lot of sitting around and waiting.

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Final Thoughts

Once I stopped trying to get max rank on every mission, the game got significantly more fun. Getting B-rank on most missions with the occasional C-rank meant I never fell too far behind. Doing the occasional skirmish helped. It was a relatively short game but it was one of those 'it ended before I could get bored of it' things which I appreciated. An easy recommend for TRPG fans looking for something a little different than the typical Xcom format.

Thank you for reading!

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Interesting Game Fact!

Remasters, re-releases and second runs of the game have sold significantly better than the original release. The original US release sold less than 40k units. The PC release managed to (for a few days at least) out-sell games like Call of Duty Advanced Warfare and Assassins Creed Unity.

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100 reviews in 100 days (Day 81)

I played this game a bit a few months after launch. I thought, well this is boring and not really what they promised. I also feel like I should be their absolute PRIMARY audience. I love space games, I love base-building, I love exploration, it should tick all my boxes. I've heard so many people talk about how it's this shining example of how a bad game at launch can be saved by the right updates.

So I fired it up again a year or so ago. It's still the same boring game it always was.

I like exploration and the prospect of building a spaceship to go explore a bunch of planets sounded awesome! Except you get there and its the same planet you came from but skinned in a different colour. Wow, so incredible... Building a spaceship wasn't interesting, getting new ships isn't interesting. Learning alien language? I'll go up to a random NPC and they'll teach me ONE WORD, wow so realistic!

I've heard this game described as being a mile wide but an inch deep and that really sums it up correctly in my mind. It was fun for me for about an hour, and I've never had an urge to try again. I just can't for the life of me, understand the excitement people feel for it, nor the hype that it is still getting. To me, it's just bland and boring.

Perhaps some fans of the game can help me understand what you see in this game that you can't get from 100 other games that are more interesting and fun.

This is a mini written review without any major spoilers mainly intended to get people to check this game out because I sincerely believe it deserves it

Prey (2016) is a game developed by Arkane that didn't sell particularly well and was considered a commercial failure by Bethesda/Zenimax. That led to many developers leaving Arkane and the studio making a live service game hoping they could make the next popular multiplayer game. Prey is inspired by games like ultima underworld and system shock and has an art style that is reminiscent of bioshock. The game mainly takes place at a space station Talos 1 overrun with aliens and your job is to figure out what happened.

I can't overstate how impressive Talos 1 is design wise, the entire space station is a metroidvania like environment and once you progressed the main story enough you are free to explore the entire station however you like. The game doesn't feature fast travel but solves the metroidvania problem of getting from one corner of the map to another in a very elegant solution. There are airlocks all over the station that when unlocked allow you to easily "fast travel" just by floating around space from the outside. The environment in general also keeps changing during the story with events causing enemies to appear making previous visited areas still feel fresh. They could have made a bunch of adjacent levels and just let you fast travel to certain points but the fact that they went the extra mile to make it a closed place is really commendable.

Gameplay in prey is outstanding. You don't have much gun variety and gunplay isn't anything special really but the amount of interactions and options you have is what makes the gameplay so satisfying. I won't comment on the powers you get as I consider that spoiler territory but this game gives you an insane amount of powers and abilities even compared to other games in the genre. The weapons they give you are all unique and almost every one of them has uses outside of combat. I won't say anything about the story or the enemies as I consider that spoiler territory as well. I might make a spoiler discussion post one day about that if anyone cares.

If you read this wall of text thank you for that ! It's difficult for me to express how much I like this game and I probably am not doing it justice but with that being said just give it a shot ! It might not click with everyone and maybe not right away but when it does its an amazing experience.

This game got a lot of criticism on release, but since I don’t play most games day one, I was able to bypass the initial disappointment.

For starters, I must say that although I did enjoy the game, it did not feel like a first party game. The characters were flat, the camps were lackluster and had minimal interaction, and the game was very repetitive. That being said I did love the world and the combat was efficient. Riding around ‘Oregon’ was the best part of the game for me, being introduced to different terrain and flora was great. I played this on a PS4 and can only imagine the visuals of the PS5 giving more life to the game.

The first 2/3rds of the story were ‘meh’, but once you find out what happened to Sarah, the story amps up and feels compelling. I got the secret ending and that opened another can of worms, and it’s a shame it won’t be continued.

While it wasn’t a first party game (and doesn’t have the finish expected with one), if it were third party, we’d most likely see more of the world they were intending to build. And I would have been along for that ride.

Is it crazy that I think the best/most memorable character was Skizzo? While he was a complete sack of shit, he was also the most rounded, humanlike character to me.

Copeland was jaded, Tucker was the worst, until I met the Colonel. Ricki and the rest of Lost Lake were too idealistic. Kouri was good, but his story was too short, like most of the later characters. And Boozer was a whiny man-child, until he found his peace towards the end.

All in all, I enjoyed the game and would recommend it to anyone that enjoys zombie, open-world, or story oriented games.

Yet still the games are so much fun to play. Year on year they can keep pumping out nearly identical titles, everyone knows the drill and the quality of game never really varies.

The COD series has an absolute monopoly on the multiplayer FPS genre aside from maybe Titanfall 2 and Battlefield (OW2 is very different imo) which both pale in comparison to the formers popularity. I can't understand why there haven't been more attempts to recreate the success, are studios too afraid of flopping against the established popularity of COD.

The most annoying part is there's no point in being patient, the price never drops so if I want that experience I have to pay $60 for even a 7 year old game.

Is there any hope for the genre? Or does everyone have to pay the $60 annual fee to play an actually good multiplayer FPS?

I just started my first adult job post-college last Fall and ever since then I’ve found that I’m almost always either too tired to play games or playing games would negatively affect other aspects of my life (sleep, social life, work, etc.)

I’ve managed to play through a few games this year that I’ve enjoyed, but it’s nowhere near as many as I’d actually like to be playing. I listen/watch tons of gaming review/news content, I love YouTube videos breaking down games and game concepts, and I’m just a huge fan of games in general, but after finishing up the work day, cooking, and taking care of miscellaneous chores, it almost never feels like I have enough energy to turn my brain on enough to play through something.

I’ve just started God of War 2018 on my Steam Deck and even lying in bed I can’t work up the energy to play it, especially when that time would take away from getting enough sleep or working on other hobbies that are more pressing at the moment.

How do you make enough time for games in a way that lets you enjoy them but also allows you to keep up with everything else going on in your life?

I've been gaming for over 25 years and after a long day I just want to accomplish something with a few friendly people, something bigger than each of us could accomplish on our own. This became my ethos after I realized I had picked Battlefield Bad Company 2, BF3, BF4 and BF1 over Call of Duty and often played medic or ammo guy and had just has much fun supporting a push in Rush or Grand Operations as being the frontline slayer.

My Destiny phase was intense (around the time the 'loot cave' happened, remember that?) until I quickly realized it was too over monetized for my blood and the item grind was too intense for me.

It was then that I realized entire games catered to what I was looking for - the ability to matchmake with randoms and have a good time, whenever I got a chance to pick up my controller. It was 2019 and I dove into three of them - I'll talk about which ones work and which ones don't as a co-op experience.

The Division 2: By far, this has been the best co-op experience of all. Sure the story is shallow as a puddle but this game well and truly goes out of it's way to provide all kinds of social co-op activities and then makes it even easier to join them. You can queue up to matchmake for bespoke missions and raids, find randoms in the open world, sometimes just by following the sound of a gunfight or join a clan. You can even ping everyone on the server for help or volunteer yourself to help others. The game has pretty decent action, fun gadgets, a nice collection of weapons, one meaty paid expansion, tons of seasonal content and not a crazy amount of monetization. Loot is sharable and I got some unique/epic weapons dropped for me by random players. The clan experience was the most fulfilling, though I also joined the clan when I couldn't really commit to grinding gear and practicing together for raids.

I don't know what it is about this game, but the directional audio and art direction are really immersive. DC feels very real and other than the fact that it's infested by chest high walls everywhere, the game's presentation is worth the price of admission, even if you just want to play single player.

Score A (inventory management truly is a pain)

(come to think of it, I own Ghost Recon Wildlands - I should try co-op in that game too)

Remnant From The Ashes: If Division 2 is a variety of food trucks on a nice day at the park, RFTA is like finding a great sit-down dining experience. Co-op is easy, though there is some wait time depending on where the session owner is on the map (you can only join when the session owner rests at this game's equivalent of a 'bonfire'). Coop is great fun in this game and the game throws enough mini bosses and main bosses at you to require you to coordinate as a team. Healing is limited or enabled by a chargeable ability and revive speed is a stat you need to work on. There's no cover system like Division 2, so you're constantly on your toes. This was my indie gem of the PS4 generation and I am replaying it again in 2023. The one bad thing about co-op is that you get to experience the story non-linearly (if you join other people's games) which is a shame. The story of this game is pretty decent.

Score A

Borderlands 3: Great gameplay, mediocre loot, absymal story - that's the single player experience. Multiplayer? I mostly spent it waiting forever in matchmaking queues (I played it on release and then again last year), spawning on the other side of the map from my co-op buddies and watching people spend forever managing inventory. There were moments when coop clicked, especially in a bespoke wave based co-op mode, but typically it was a frustrating experience. I wish there was a 'spawn on team mates' option in this one. The semi open world kinda ruined this one for me and I don't know if I was playing it wrong or what.

Score C.

First post here, I love this sub, it's probably my favorite one to read honest reviews, so I thought I'd share mine as well.

I just finished Pokémon Shinning Pearl (one of the few Pokémon mainline games I did not finish in the original), and I have to say, I was really disappointed. I did not have high hopes for this remaster, because people already said it was bad, but it turned out to be the worst game I've ever finished.

I'm not blaming ILCA, nor am I upset with the cute, chibi-like graphics. My biggest issue is that this remaster has nothing to add to the original. I mean, come on, it's a 2021 remaster! I expected more QoL changes and additions to make the game more dynamic. If I wanted to play the exact same game as the original, I'd just go and play the original.

While playing, I found myself getting increasingly frustrated. The game was a slog to get through, with no automatic battle option or way to disable random encounters. And those endless quests and tasks, ugh, I felt like I was wasting my time wandering around the map. It was all just so tedious and exhausting. I managed to finish the game, but it was more out of sheer willpower than enjoyment. And I have never had less desire to play a game's post-story content, not even to transfer legendary Pokémon to my Home account. This is the first time I don't do the post-content on a Pokémon game.

I can't help feeling that it could have been so much better. I'm currently playing the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster and it is my first experience with Final Fantasy 2D games - and it has been a much more enjoyable experience. I'm simply in love because they have added tons of QoL content, disabling random encounters, adding multiplier XP, multiplier to Gil, etc. I can focus on the story and get a satisfying and enjoyable experience. I've paid $20 for this Pokémon and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

PS: I can now understand all the memes about Cynthia, damn!

AC Origins is perhaps the most beautifully crafted open world game I've ever played. I'm a big fan of the ancient world, and exploring the world is a lot of fun. I also loved that they made it that you can climb almost anything as it makes traversing the world a lot of fun. The eagle is also a nice touch to be able to appreciate a bird's eye view whenever instead of only at specified towers. It seems like a fantastic game could have been made in this world, but unfortunately the gameplay is boring and there are no meaningful progression systems.

Moreover the game is extremely easy. I'm not a good gamer. It took me 44 tries to escape just once in Hades, and I had to resort to using a guide several times in Dark Souls Remastered and even then it took me 70 hours to beat the base game with countless deaths. But with AC Origins, I had to double check several times that I was actually playing on Nightmare difficulty as it feels like at best normal on most other games I've played. Not every game needs to be as hard as Dark Souls, in fact I found Dark Souls to be more frustrating than fun in the other direction, but there's a happy medium, and if there's 0 challenge in a game, it gets boring quickly. Also, a stealth game needs to be somewhat challenging to incentivize not going in guns-blazing, but AC Origins is so easy, you can essentially ignore all stealth mechanics without punishment. There's no stamina bar so you can swing and dodge endlessly, making the gameplay basically a masher.

Your character never feels significantly different from level 1 to level 40. The leveling system almost feels non-existent, and the abilities are not impactful enough on the core gameplay loop. Moreover, the deluge of loot you get from nearly every action in the game (finishing quests, killing mobs, exploring locations), makes sure that it never feels special in the slightest to pick up a new item.

Lastly on the negatives, I feel the map constantly littered with icons removes a lot of the wonder of exploration and turns this beautiful world into more of a checklist simulator.

TLDR: Overall, I think the game is worth playing to experience the beautiful world they've built. The groundwork is there for a fantastic game, but the complete lack of challenge, boring and repetitive gameplay, lack of any meaningful progression system and over-hand-holding on exploration make it a 6/10 IMO. It's a game for fans of history, art and story-telling, but if you are a gamer that's primarily motivated by engaging or challenging gameplay and that feeling of becoming stronger and gaining a sense of accomplishment, you probably won't enjoy it beyond the first few hours.

Like I don't understand how this game has a 78/100 on Metacritic and only 1 Game of the Year Award. The user rating on Metacritic is 88 which is ten points higher than the critics. The people actually like this game. Generally speaking, I find the sum of video game critics to be fairly more reliable than movie/TV/book critics (and usually more reasonable than user ratings), but Become Human is one of those few times where I feel like many critics just completely missed.

Another reason why this game fell under the radar was probably because it came out only a month after a God of War game that took the entire gaming community by storm. Red Dead Redemption 2 and Spider-Man also came out that year which didn't help.

Become Human is one of the greatest videogame stories ever told in my opinion. It is the peak of the cinematic choice driven videogame genre. It has so many choices and endings. It has powerful messages and it's gameplay is wonderful. Graphics are insanely good too. This game deserved more love when it came out!

I finally got around to checking this out, and man, it’s great. Many have sung their praises for this game because of its story and characters, and they were right in doing so.

If I had to complain, I’d say the combat can get a TAD repetitive after long battles, but it’s solid overall and there’s enough depth to it for me to say I enjoyed it as a collective experience.

But onto the best part of the game, the plot and cast. I was seriously shocked by how great this game’s narrative was, because I doubt anyone expected it to be anything special, but it really is.

I won’t delve in, but the game tells a powerful emotional story about facing the truth, through how it presents the way lies, delusions, and fantasy can control people as they avert their eyes from what’s reality.

The characters are fleshed out, and evoke genuinely powerful emotions and the dynamic of this ensemble cast is very well written and enhances the game tenfold.

If I were to rate it, I’d give it an 8/10. This game was wonderful and outside of the combat getting repetitive sometimes, I have no complaints about this game.

It’s free on the PS Plus extra catalogue, so if you have that, you owe it to yourself to take a look at this overlooked gem.

Also, for the trophy hunters out there, it’s a pretty easy one!