Mini-Review/Backlog Destruction Thread

I've been on Holiday since last Friday and was hoping to have filled up this thread, but unfortunately I'm taking my sweet ass time through the couple games I'm playing. Still have four more days before back to work so hoping to finish a couple by then, Zelda: A Link to the Past and Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun.

Zelda - Never played this game back on the SNES. Currently playing it on the Wii U virtual console and have really enjoyed it. I'm on the final dungeon now so won't be long.

Shadow Tactics - Game is an absolute blast. Never played the old stealth tactical strategy games Commandos but this game is great if you're looking for something in that genre. The art is beautiful and music is great for the game's setting. I'm about 20 hours in and still have another three or four missions to go so unless I'm just completely terrible at this game there is plenty of game play for the price.
 
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Ratchet and Clank - great game. I haven't played a Ratchet and Clank game since Tools of Destruction so this was a great time to jump back in. The gameplay was fantastic. The game really shines when you get to use your entire arsenal as Ratchet but Insomniac did a great job with implementing variety with the Clank missions and the ship battles. The game looks gorgeous as well. I highly recommend it.
 
So since my last post I finished up A Link to the Past and Shadow Tactics so good progress on single player games recently. Last night I started Bravely Default finally. Have had it sitting there in shrink wrap for a year or two now.
 
Bound - Glad I waited for the PS4 Pro update before playing this. I imagine the game had a lot of visual candy as is on standard PS4, but it was pure eye candy in 4K. Aside from the graphics, I really enjoyed the unique gameplay and the way it told its story through memories. That said, the gameplay was incredibly basic and straight forward. To a wide extent, it felt like you were pressing forward and just switching which of 2 or 3 buttons you'd hit to get to the end of each level. Cool unique indie game, but definitely not for everyone.
 
Quantum Break - I think Max Payne 1 and 2 are classics and Alan Wake is great as well and because of that I found this to be very disappointing. Its a solid shooter with a potentially interesting story that is totally ruined by God awfully boring live action TV episodes. I am in the process of building a time machine to go back and tell myself to just skip them.
 
Zombie Driver - I actually had fun with this game, and completed the story mode which can be rare for me. It's on sale so often for $5, so it would have to be pretty bad to feel like a waste of money, but it's a solid game. Feels like a b-movie video game with its ridiculous over the top gameplay and story, so if you're in the mood for that this game pulls it off pretty well.
 
Games Backlog:

Xbox One: Halo MCC, Metro Redux, Far Cry 4, Mafia 3, Gears Of War 4.

Xbox 360: Borderlands, Gears Of War 3, Gears Of War Judgment.

PS4: The Last Of Us Re-mastered, Batman AK, COD BO 3, Sleeping Dogs, Battlefield 1, Watch Dogs.

Currently working on Gears 4 and BO 3.

I will get both complete by the end of the week hopefully.
 
yankeessuck said:
Quantum Break - I think Max Payne 1 and 2 are classics and Alan Wake is great as well and because of that I found this to be very disappointing. Its a solid shooter with a potentially interesting story that is totally ruined by God awfully boring live action TV episodes. I am in the process of building a time machine to go back and tell myself to just skip them.
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I finally am getting to Deus Ex Mankind Divided. I have to say I really don't like it? The movement feels super clunky and robotic (yeah I know... the guy is mostly a robot). It feels more RPGish than action oriented. I love stealth games, but the awkward movement kind of throws me.

Should I stick with it? Honestly I am close to putting it back on the bottom of my backlog pile.
 
OfficialSono said:
Games Backlog:

Xbox One: Halo MCC, Metro Redux, Far Cry 4, Mafia 3.

Xbox 360: Borderlands, Gears Of War 3, Gears Of War Judgment.

PS4: The Last Of Us Re-mastered, Batman AK, COD BO 3, Sleeping Dogs, Battlefield 1, Watch Dogs.
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Finished Gears a fantastic experience from start to finish and now on to Metro Redux (Currently on Level 5 of 7) on the Xbox One and BLOPS 3 (Level 9 of 11) on the PS Pro.
 
Just finished King's Quest (2015). Excellent episodic gaming. Puzzles got kinda hard toward the end but not unsolvable.
 
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I just finished watching the 6th sense and Keyser Sose didn't have the briefcase from pulp fiction in it?
 
Really slacked in January, only made it through a couple games.

Shadow Warrior - Finally got around to this game after getting it for $8 on Black Friday. It really felt like a poor mans Doom, and that is actually a big compliment! The gameplay is fast moving, fun, the weapons are all satisfying, the enemies really fun to fight, and the graphics are overall really good. I say a poor mans Doom because it shares a lot of qualities, but Doom is just much better. Still highly recommended, especially if you can get it on the cheap.
 
I've been playing through some classic games in the Sonic's Sega Collection on Vita. Games I probably didn't try at all or barely touched back in the day.

Vectorman 1&2 are really underrated games.
 
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I'm 75% or more through Rise of the Tomb Raider. It has some decent elements however I must admit to being disappointed compared to a lot of the positive feedback it had at release. There are cool mechanics. Graphics both technically and artistically are nice. Nice animations. It just doesn't come together. The AI and cardboard environments ruin the immersion. Nothing lamer than having this athlete who jumps 10 feet in some areas but then can't jump over 3 foot bushes that serve as invisible walls in other spots. The sandboxes where you fight most enemies are extremely disappointing and poorly developed. Here you have all these moves, weapons and ability to traverse environments and enemies are usually stuck down what is essentially a corridor with a couple bushes. Not even much vertical creativity in the environments. AI is horribly stupid before they spot you then suddenly every bad guy in an area has X-ray vision and can track you through walls and floors once one sees you.

Jumping around in the non combat areas can be fun and crafting bottles into bombs on the fly turned into an unexpected joy. I give combat a 6 for what is essentially standard PS2 AI, physics and lack of dynamic anything. Other times exploring and platforming feels like a 9. Overall leaning towards giving this game a 7.5.
 
OfficialSono said:
Games Backlog:

Xbox One: Mafia 3.

Xbox 360: Borderlands, Gears Of War 3, Gears Of War Judgment.

PS4: The Last Of Us Re-mastered, Sleeping Dogs, Battlefield 1, Watch Dogs.
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Finished BO 3 and I felt the campaign dragged, the last level was particularly annoying to complete.

On to Battlefield or Metro.
 
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My backlog.
-Deus Ex Mankind divided
-Black Desert Online (played like 2 sitting. very complicated. Feels like work playing, so I didn't play that much).
-Doom 4 ( It get too repetitive after a while so I lost interest)

New game I got
-Mass Effect Andromeda

Games I intended to get
-Gears 4
 
OneBadMutha said:
I'm 75% or more through Rise of the Tomb Raider. It has some decent elements however I must admit to being disappointed compared to a lot of the positive feedback it had at release. There are cool mechanics. Graphics both technically and artistically are nice. Nice animations. It just doesn't come together. The AI and cardboard environments ruin the immersion. Nothing lamer than having this athlete who jumps 10 feet in some areas but then can't jump over 3 foot bushes that serve as invisible walls in other spots. The sandboxes where you fight most enemies are extremely disappointing and poorly developed. Here you have all these moves, weapons and ability to traverse environments and enemies are usually stuck down what is essentially a corridor with a couple bushes. Not even much vertical creativity in the environments. AI is horribly stupid before they spot you then suddenly every bad guy in an area has X-ray vision and can track you through walls and floors once one sees you.

Jumping around in the non combat areas can be fun and crafting bottles into bombs on the fly turned into an unexpected joy. I give combat a 6 for what is essentially standard PS2 AI, physics and lack of dynamic anything. Other times exploring and platforming feels like a 9. Overall leaning towards giving this game a 7.5.
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I enjoyed the game fro start to end. But I am big Tomb raider fan.
 
Razzel said:
Took down a couple of walking simulators over the past few days:

Firewatch - So I'll start with the positives. The setting is really great visually, and it was cool to hike through the map and discover stuff. It's funny though because hiking is one of those mundane activities that you do for exercise or to experience real nature, so it feels more than a little weird to do it in a videogame lol. I guess it's December though and nobody is doing real hiking, so I'll give it a pass. The story is where this game sinks or swims, and unfortunately it does a little of both. On one hand it is really gripping at times. I got really wrapped up in the middle section of the story and did not want to put the controller down. The story is twisting and turning and it's just great. The beginning though is a real slowwwww burn, and while I actually agree with that design decision because it sets up the tense parts, I was still fighting off the boredom. I'm not a gamer with a ton of patience, but I needed every bit of it for this one haha! The much bigger issue is with the end. I just don't see how you can see that as a satisfying conclusion to the story. Not that it's a huge cliffhanger or anything, it just doesn't seem like a story meant for videogames because the conclusion is just so dull. Overall, I'd recommend this but only on a deep sale. It's an interesting but disappointing experience.

Oxenfree - This game is just fantastic. I knew next to nothing about it going in, but it blew me away. I don't want to say too much to avoid spoiling anything for people, but just know that it's another story based game with extremely well written characters, engaging dialogue system that more games should copy, a great style of graphics, and a plot that goes all over the place...in a good way. Highly recommended at full price, sale price, I don't care just GET THIS GAME!
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Oddly enough I just bought both of these games as they were part of the bogo type deal Sony had this past week.


Only game I've completed lately is Nioh which was amazing. As someone that never got into Dark Souls and barely played any Bloodborne, I could not put this game down. I'm hoping to give Bloodborne a chance again at some point. Currently playing through Horizon Zero Dawn so with this and Nioh I'm not really working on any backlog at this point. Nioh gave me about 80 hours or so of gameplay and I would imagine at the rate I'm going so will Horizon.
 
Finished Mass Effect Andromeda.(X1) Did all of the loyalty/squad missions, got all of the worlds to 100% viability and did most of the planetary quests.

Final thoughts( Maybe Spoilers):


Its a decent game. The first couple of hours are rough but once you get past that, it opens up a bit. The combat is much improved but I personally miss the power wheel. The character interactions between your crew are really good. More than one time I caught myself grinning from ear to ear or literally laughing out loud. I especially like the back and forth between PeeBee and Cora. Or PeeBee and Drack. And don't let Bioware fool you, with "Andromeda is not the start of a new trilogy". It most definitely is. The game leaves too many loose threads unanswered to be a one off.

As for the bad, the game is quite glitchy/buggy. There are a few game restarting ones. This is especially irritating when doing a story mission and you run into a problem and have to load an old autosave because you can't manually save in missions. The animations are what they are, so no need to continue that debate, but I ran into a few more really awkward ones and clipping in scenes. The main story is nothing to write home about. In fact, they borrow alot of similar themes from the original trilogy and re-purpose them. It honestly felt like I was story-wise replaying a mix of ME 1 and 2.

In the end though, Bioware did enough to make me curious for the next game in the Ryder saga. And while I earlier said the game could have used another few months in development, I still stand by that, and will go a bit further and say it could have used another year. But it is playable and enjoyable for the most part. However in the times we live in where games are released unfinished and patched to completion as time goes on, Mass effect Andromeda isn't one of the most egregious offenders.

Again, I'll reiterate that the game is not terrible. I'll even argue its a good middle of the road game. But technical issues, questionable game play choices ( overabundance of pointless fetch quests a la Dragon Age Inquisition) and an middling story are what ultimately leave this game feeling average to me.
 
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Finally got through Shadow of Mordor. Cool game that didn't immediately grab me but it grew on me. The chunky graphics however never impressed me.
 
Finished Horizon: Zero Dawn (PS4). Wow. That was an experience. I was completely engaged from beginning to end. Anyone with a PS4 needs to check it out. It's up there with Breath of the Wild for my GOTY so far.
 
I'm close to the end on that I would imagine. Sitting about 85% complete but I've already found all the collectibles, done corruption zones, etc so unless there are some side quests that haven't unlocked yet it should be just main missions now.
 
aceattorney said:
Finally got through Shadow of Mordor. Cool game that didn't immediately grab me but it grew on me. The chunky graphics however never impressed me.
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Initially, I played the game for 3 hours beforeI uninstalled the game.

A few months later, I had no other fantasy games left to finish, so I decided to push through it, and after about 8 hours, it finally 'clicked' and I loved it.

No idea why I found it so grating initially.
 
Bellybama said:
Initially, I played the game for 3 hours beforeI uninstalled the game.

A few months later, I had no other fantasy games left to finish, so I decided to push through it, and after about 8 hours, it finally 'clicked' and I loved it.

No idea why I found it so grating initially.
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I loved the idea of "planting" orcs to rise up the ranks. They need a Shadow of Mordor: Trump - Putin mod.
 
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