The last game you completed, and rating.

Soldato
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2 Jan 2004
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Chesterfield
I tried to get into this a while ago, I found it to be a checklist game style of story. Is that the case? Or is there a 'wall' that once you pass it, the game opens up?

The story is pretty linear in terms of go to location A, kill bad guys, get clue to location B, kill more bad guys, rinse & repeat until you face a boss/underboss etc but it is also open world so you can fly off at a tangent and basically go kill whomever you want to!

That said it just happened to be my kind of game - I like the stealth element and the tactical planning in attacking a base but at the same time I'm sure you can just storm in and tank everything if you are good enough!

Nice storyline too though - taking down the cartel one brick at a time!
 
Soldato
Joined
5 Dec 2008
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17,283
Star Wars Fallen Order 8/10

Loved it personally, story was good, combat very good. I didn't mind the platform aspects as they worked well

Can't wait for the sequel
 
Associate
Joined
7 Jan 2012
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1,535
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West Midlands
AC Odyssey (main game) 7/10. I was very much looking forward to this game but the amount of time spent looking to fix the game freezing and crashing kind of assassinated the mood :p. Eventually after trying multiple things it worked and so the times it played flawlessly I tried to get through as much of the main storyline as possible fearing it would crash/freeze again.
The main story line was finished in about 50 hours which seemed short given the amount of time some people have spent in the game and was really hoping that I would get the same level of gameplay out of it. The gameplay mechanics and the combat was quite enjoyable but I felt that the main story line ended quite abruptly after having me hooked and left me more confused. Will be trying out the DLC's to see if they further add any clarification to the current day storyline (which I think they do).
 

ne0

ne0

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2 Feb 2018
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682
Control

Meh. The combat is good and can be quite challenging. Repetitive enemy types. Interesting art style. I just can't get into it because the story is quite frankly a load of old ********. Don't get me wrong; I love sci fi and I love paranormal stuff, but for me, it's just too 'out there'.

The audio design is very, very good.

Ray tracing with DLSS 2.0 is VERY impressive in this game - really excited to see what it can do for future games. I think we will finally see the back of things like TAA blurring everything once DLSS is implemented into more games.

BTW the constant outlines on everything that you can throw was ruining the visuals for me so I found a decent mod to switch it off via a little xml file; made the game 100% times more enjoyable.

7/10
 
Soldato
Joined
17 Dec 2006
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8,190
Assassin's Creed: Odyssey

8.5/10: Total playtime was around 150 hours incl. the DLC. I really enjoyed it, and pretty much did everything in the game save for a few of the tablets to get the remaining crafting unlocks. I thought the story was excellent, and I really enjoyed looking at all of the history in the game and how they tied the Assassin's Creed franchise into it with the notable historical figures and events (granted, some were obviously fictitious, which is fine - it's not a simulator). It felt like an evolution from Origins rather than a revolution which is fine for me as Origins was excellent and building on that is fine.

I think the only issues I had was that it got too easy after a certain point, even on higher difficulties. Assassinations were just near-enough pointless after a certain point and it was just faster and easier to just charge in and decimate everyone. Also, getting a bounty on you wasn't really a punishment, and it felt like reward as the bounty hunters were easy and dropped quite a bit of drachmae and other loot. I also wished there was more "out of the Animus" content too.
 
Soldato
Joined
5 Feb 2009
Posts
3,814
Nioh
After many hours in this game over the past two months, I think it may be time to finally move on to something else.

I know people point out a few flaws with this game (some lack-lustre level design, reused locations and enemies, some gimmicky bosses, too many OHKOs, it gets a bit grindy, etc.), but despite this it's one of my favuorite games in... well, a good while.

I learned a lot about the Japanese Sengoku periond, the Tokugawa Shogunate and Japanese folklore, all of which was pretty cool. The main story is a bit hammy, but it's set against actual historical event and characters and I actually like how it intertwined folklore into actual history.

What sets this game apart from all others I've played, though, is the combat and how it works in sync with the character progression and build system. It feels very fluid to play, and takes a long while to master, but is satisfying when you do. There's a really nice variety of weapons, and each has its own style and moveset (times three, actually, since the stance system changes things up as well). Skills, item and set bonuses, and ninjustu and onmyo (magic) abilities really let you mix up your approach and bring in something of a tactical element alongside the fluid combat. This all works superbly well together, I thought, and even the gimmicky OHKO bosses felt like a puzzle to be solved rather than a frustration given how much flexibility you have as a player to keep trying new approaches.

It DOES get pretty grindy through later game cycles, though, and that is why I'm putting it to one side for now (not without a pang of regret, I must admit). I stuck with it much longer than I usually do for these types of games, as I just the other day opened up the final area in NG+++. At this stage, though, you need to work more assiduously on your build to keep progressing smoothly and I was finding the drop rates on some key items (especially smithing texts) just too damn low - or RNGesus was just angry with me, I dunno. About 50 runs on one boss, 10 on another and 20 on another duo of bosses, and none of them dropped even one of the texts I needed to start to round out my build. This has sapped my will to continue, for now at least, great as the combat still feels to play with. I think Team Ninja could have easily upped the drop rate on these things by ten times and still have maintained the lure of late-game investment for hardcore players.

It gets a solid 9/10 for me, though, for how much I loved the combat and the setting (and Nekomata).

But only two pages on the game thread here. It's clearly not going to be fore everyone, but I can't but think it merits much more attention. Roll on Nioh 2's PC release!
 
Associate
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28 May 2004
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531
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The US of A
Remnant from the Ashes - 7.5/10

I really enjoyed this game once I got into it. Most of the bosses provided a challenge. You could not "over level" yourself by grinding out bad guys to level-up your weapons past a certain point which was kinda cool. I thought the game could have been a bit longer giving me more time to increase the other skill cards. Graphics were good and the sound was good. The gun mechanics were fantastic - wish though I could have more than two equipped guns at time but regardless it was fun.

One piece of advice: I'd suggest for the first play through to stick with your current weapons and try to find good armor early on and stick with it.
 
Caporegime
Joined
28 Oct 2003
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31,842
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Chestershire
Singularity. 8/10

Not played this since it came out on Xbox 360 in 2010 so it was like playing something new. Pretty good FPS all in all with some neat mechanics. Ran flawlessly in 4K60 - no crashes! - as you would hope.
 
Associate
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23 Dec 2018
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1,096
Nioh


It gets a solid 9/10 for me, though, for how much I loved the combat and the setting (and Nekomata).

But only two pages on the game thread here. It's clearly not going to be fore everyone, but I can't but think it merits much more attention. Roll on Nioh 2's PC release!


Good review, 2 things annoyed me about Nioh, both of which are more my issues rather than the game. Firstly after completing Dark Souls 1-3, I don't think I've got any more "hard" games in me. I got up to the Butterfly lady in Nioh and just had to tap out.

Secondly in a game with some historical basis in fact, it annoyed me they retconned William Adams from being a historical fact as the first, or one of the first two Western Samurai actually being English, a pretty cool fact and arguably could be considered somewhat of a English hero. So changing him to be Irish and not only that being imprisoned by the English was pretty lame. Yes the game is largely fantasy, but if you want an Irish hero, make one up or use an Irish pirate of which there were many.

I'd love a game of Irish mythology based on old Celtic Kings and tribes and would never dream of changing any of them to be English, what's the point of changing Nioh? To sell more in America almost certainly.

Granted, there's many games that can be made to support Irish theory of English being tyrants at times based on real history, I'd be happy to play them too with historical accuracy applied.
 
Soldato
Joined
5 Feb 2009
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3,814
Good review, 2 things annoyed me about Nioh, both of which are more my issues rather than the game. Firstly after completing Dark Souls 1-3, I don't think I've got any more "hard" games in me. I got up to the Butterfly lady in Nioh and just had to tap out.

Secondly in a game with some historical basis in fact, it annoyed me they retconned William Adams from being a historical fact as the first, or one of the first two Western Samurai actually being English, a pretty cool fact and arguably could be considered somewhat of a English hero. So changing him to be Irish and not only that being imprisoned by the English was pretty lame. Yes the game is largely fantasy, but if you want an Irish hero, make one up or use an Irish pirate of which there were many.

I'd love a game of Irish mythology based on old Celtic Kings and tribes and would never dream of changing any of them to be English, what's the point of changing Nioh? To sell more in America almost certainly.

Granted, there's many games that can be made to support Irish theory of English being tyrants at times based on real history, I'd be happy to play them too with historical accuracy applied.

Oh, yeah, Hino Enma. She was tough, but I did manage to beat her first try (just), because I found that using my guardian spirit would knock her down every time, as well as doing damage and building up the scorch effect. Once I found that out, using lightning on my weapon and the kusarigama skill reaper when she went down meant it only took three casts of that onmyo to melt her health bar. Without stumbling into that strategy (pretty much out of desperation as I ran out of elixirs, to be honest!) I think she'd have given me a lot of trouble. Now the second fight with Okatsu - that took me 34 attempts to beat! Jin Hayabusa? I didn't even check, but wouldn't be surprised if it was even more...

This was one of the things I liked about it - tough, fast-paced combat, but so many ways to approach each situation. I favoured onymo, using carnage, weakness and lighnting for most of the game, and the fact that things, well... change in Way of the Wise was quite a surprise that forced me to try some different strategies.

I must admit I didn't look into William's backstory. I didn't really find him an interesting enough character to want to look up, so I had no idea about him being retconned. I was much more interested in some of the Japanese characters and was pleasantly surprised to find how closely (yet also with much artistic license!) they had woven events into the plot (the Honno-ji incident, the burning of Azuchi Castle, the siege of Osaka, etc.).

But yeah, I totally get what you're saying about not having any more hard games in you after games like this and DS. Having finished Nioh, I now can't quite face another difficult Souls-like, but also nothing else seems like it would feel substantial enough to get stuck into so I'm not playing much (just breezing around in Persona 4 a bit without any real committment).
 
Soldato
Joined
1 Jul 2015
Posts
2,844
Location
UK
The Evil Within 2

Despite having never played the first, I decided to give the sequel a whirl because I got a key for a superb price. I read a synopsis to get me up to speed with the story and then dived straight in. My expectations were low, mainly because I imagined that the game was going to be a convoluted mess (one of the reasons I avoided the first installment), however....I was pleasantly surprised; I really enjoyed it. So much so that I started a new game plus to see how quickly I could finish it. First play-through was 20 hours, second took me three hours, during which I used a combination of a magnum and a shotgun to destroy everything in my path.

7.5/10 - recommended.
 
Associate
Joined
26 Sep 2009
Posts
398
Jedi: Fallen Order: - 6/10

The story, characters and combat get it to 6. The level design and platforming was immersion breaking.

Metro Exodus: 8/10

I really enjoyed this one. A great all rounder. Graphics, story and game play were consistent throughout.

The Outer Worlds: 8/10

Overall a solid game and very well written. I wish the worlds could have been better populated. Walking through ghost towns broke immersion for me.
 
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