Mini-Review/Backlog Destruction Thread

After playing Shadow of Tomb Raider. I made a realization. It's better to play the type of games you enjoy, then play popular games. Same can be said of movies.

When I was on a plane to India to get sunburned, I watched Peter Rabbit. I thought it is very funny & the jokes ain't overly in your face. However, going to rotten tomatoes, the rating ain't as high as I thought. Paddington 2 which I enjoy just as much, scored much higher.

God of war is highly rated, & I did enjoy myself when I played, but I never felt the urge to returned to the game. Maybe Kratos quite unrelatable, & his son is another emo kid, but looks like a shrunk down Russian gangster with an overly amount of scars & tattoos on a kid.

But Lara feels relatable, maybe because I played her since the reboot. maybe.
 
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I just finished Persona 5. I understand why it received so much praise in 2017. It is one of the finest Jrpgs I've played in a very long time. Interesting game-play, excellent soundtrack, very stylish graphics/art direction and a few twists and turns story wise. It took me a little over 93 hours to complete the game but once it had its hook in me, its the only game I wanted to play. This is easily the best game I've played this year.
 
Finished Shadow of the tomb Raider (PC). Visually it was great. Lots of graphically pleasing elements in it. Game-play was better in this one as well, even though Lara was a Rambo replacement for most of the game. Story wise.... it was Meh. Overall it did close some loose threads from the first 2 games but did so abruptly and clumsily. Overall still a good game but nothing extraordinary.
 
Bought spiderman & played for about 45 mins. Got my ass kicked many times, but it's not overly frustrating as the checkpoints are generous. The web swinging doesn't take long to get used to, but the combat, I still need more work.
 
Man, I just finished RIME, and it's one of two games that has made me cry as an adult (the other being The Last of Us). What started as a kinda "meh" interest boomed into being quite enthralled and the game definitely hits Art status for me.

My kids watched the whole way through (over several sessions) and they were balling with me. It really touched a nerve that is hard to reach for me. Great art, fantastic music, and by the end...
 
Still playing through Bloodborne. Looking at a guide I'm still only like half way through. I jumped into the DLC quick to grab some new weapons and think I'm close to boss fights in those. Still loving the game but I only put an hour or maybe two a night so going to be a while.
 
One of the good thing being on sick leave (after the pain reduced) is that you have time to play games. I finally finish Spider-man! Great game, but got my ass kicked a lot, especially early on. The boss fights were pretty tough & I mostly barely beat them comfortably but they were fair. I am surprised I didn't die that often, all thanks to healing, which I spammed a lot.

Normally, having to play as another character or special sections in games are awful in game ( I remembered one section in Halo 3 or 4 where I have to fly a plane dodging stuff, & it was frustrating as hell), with exception of Ciri from Witcher 3. But playing as MJ & Miles were fun.

Looking forward the DLC.
 
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Beat Rise and Shine on Game Pass. Nice addictive little game that will leave you with carpel tunnel. Story is dumb as hell. Shooting is not precise or consistent as Cuphead. Will literaly wear out your wrists and forearms. Despite this, appreciated this type of game. Some unique gameplay elements for a game that looks like a standard side scrolling shooter on the surface. Nice visuals. Good challenge. Good first game by a rookie developer.
 
Played through Thief of Thieves on Gamepass. Can't wait for volume 2 to come out. Its a fun little narrative adventure game in the same vein as what Telltale used to make.
 
I extended my sick leave to another week for my knee to recover. Have time for more games.

I continued with GOW where I last left off (turtle house). The art direction in the game is pretty dope.
 
With Black Friday sales, I've added a few more games to the backlog:

God of War
SpiderMan
Assassins Creed Odyssey
Dragon Quest 11

I'm still playing through Hitman 2 and valkyria chronicles 4. Plus Darksiders 3 comes out next week.
 
How do you guys find so much time gaming? I am on sick leave & I am playing God of war for maybe 5 hours, 6 max.
I play far less when I am working.

Maybe I am getting old.

Anyway, I maybe getting Darksiders 3. I have to see.
 
Finished the main campaign of Hitman 2. It very short all together but I'm hoping that there will be plenty of Elusive targets and DLC assassinations to pad it out.
As of right now I enjoyed it but don't quite feel like I got my monies worth.
 
I thought of preorder Darksiders III for the new armor. Turn out its just a skin (color change), so I guess I wait for reviews first.

I am about halfway in GOW, & its strange, while I enjoy the time I play, I never really look forward to new session. I felt that many games these days are filled with too much time fillers & side stuff, that you feel obligated to do them as completionist & rewards, but they are not always as enjoyable as the main cole of the game. Those timed chest puzzles (where you have to throw axe) are often very irritating, but the rewards are too good to skip.

Same with spider-man, you need to collect stuff & do the side activities to upgrade suits, gadgets, & not all are fun, many are repetitive like chasing birds & fight the same thugs over & over again.
 
How do you guys find so much time gaming? I am on sick leave & I am playing God of war for maybe 5 hours, 6 max.
I play far less when I am working.

Maybe I am getting old.

Anyway, I maybe getting Darksiders 3. I have to see.

I make time. Maybe 20 mins or so before I got to work, then maybe 2 hours after work. And that's during the week days. On the weekends, if the family doesn't have any outstanding needs, they can find me in the couch groove all weekend.
 
I did it! I did it! I finally beat muthaf’n Cuphead! My hands are too weak to pick my nose. But I did it. Ready for the DLC now.

Great game if you like a challenge.
 
I make time. Maybe 20 mins or so before I got to work, then maybe 2 hours after work. And that's during the week days. On the weekends, if the family doesn't have any outstanding needs, they can find me in the couch groove all weekend.
Wait... do you have wife and kids or do you live with parents?
 
I'm doing a deep dive on my backlog. Finished Wolfenstein New Order and New Blood. On to 2. Fun games. Tough boss battles.

Still on my backlog list:
-Wolfenstein 2
-AC: Origins
-Gears of War 4 (lol, hope I don't lose my Xbox fanboy card, never finished it yet)
 
After playing Shadow of Tomb Raider, Spider-man & GOW, I thought I want a less intense game. So I got an adventure game, dreamfall Chapters instead.
 
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The firm I work for has Gamestop as a client (the devil in gaming) and from time to time they send over games. And so last week they sent over a bunch of codes for some games most of which were for sports titles of which I have no interest in. But one game did raise an eyebrow of interest, something called Starlink: Battle for Atlas so I took the digital code for it.

Its clear this title is geared more towards a younger audience but as an open world space adventure this is a really fun title. I’m glad I got this for free but I’d easily pay $40 for it since I really like space games and we don’t get much of them. This is basically a No Man’s Sky game with a fun story, much more focused than the aimlessness of NMS. But as an Ubisoft game expect plenty of map icons with lots to do. A lot of the missions are repetitive like scan this animal, delivery these goods, take out these enemies to liberate a base but the flying and shooting is so fun that I don’t mind that. And you can transition from planet to space all in realtime and that in itself is awesome.

I checked out some reviews and it seems the Switch version is the best because its got Starfox and his crew in it. That would have been cool but I’m on the PS4 and the game is gorgeous but I would have sacrificed some graphical fidelity for Fox and friends but its cool since the core game without that cast is a lot of fun. I don’t recommend this at full price but if you’re looking for a lighthearted open world space adventure with fun shooting/flying with beautiful environments this would be a good pick up.

I also picked up Shadow of War for Xbox on the cheap during their last sale. It was for the complete edition for like $25 which seemed more than worth it to me. I’m looking forward to checking it out. I’ve read good things about it and some mindless Orc slaying seems like fun.
 
Started up Fallout 4 again. Figured if I don’t go back to it now I never will. My character was lvl 31 about 70 hours in. Have to say this game pulled me back in easily. I love the world and it looks nice on my new TV set. Going to finally finish and move on.
 
Was Mass Effect: Andromeda judged too harshly?

I don’t know the answer to that question since I let the negativity surrounding the game stop me from buying it at launch. But I just started it thanks to the trailer from The Outer Worlds putting me in the mood for a sci-fi RPG and its been a lot of fun. It’s a beautiful game to look at and more importantly a lot of fun to play. I’m only about 8 hours into it so just starting but the story has pulled me in and the exploration & combat has been fun so far.

It’s a shame EA cut and run and decided to shelve this franchise.
 
How do you guys find so much time gaming? I am on sick leave & I am playing God of war for maybe 5 hours, 6 max.
I play far less when I am working.

Maybe I am getting old.

Anyway, I maybe getting Darksiders 3. I have to see.

I trade sleep, usually. Don't get to it until everyone else is asleep, but I can get in about 3 hrs a night.
 
Was Mass Effect: Andromeda judged too harshly?

I don’t know the answer to that question since I let the negativity surrounding the game stop me from buying it at launch. But I just started it thanks to the trailer from The Outer Worlds putting me in the mood for a sci-fi RPG and its been a lot of fun. It’s a beautiful game to look at and more importantly a lot of fun to play. I’m only about 8 hours into it so just starting but the story has pulled me in and the exploration & combat has been fun so far.

It’s a shame EA cut and run and decided to shelve this franchise.
Game is good, 7/10 or maybe an 8.
If it hadn't the mass Effect name it would've gotten praised, but since the prequels are masterpieces and this game wasn't, it got slammed. It's not like the earlier games wasn't buggy either, they were so not sure why people got hung up on that. I honestly think the internets f*** up at times, it seems to be the general law to hate ME3 because of the ending, I thought it worked just fine, sure they could've explain better what happened to everyone (they did patch the ending with just for that later) but all in all I'm fine with it.
Internet potates once in awhile, andromeda is fine (but perhaps not a worthy sequel to the franchise).
 
Was Mass Effect: Andromeda judged too harshly?

I don’t know the answer to that question since I let the negativity surrounding the game stop me from buying it at launch. But I just started it thanks to the trailer from The Outer Worlds putting me in the mood for a sci-fi RPG and its been a lot of fun. It’s a beautiful game to look at and more importantly a lot of fun to play. I’m only about 8 hours into it so just starting but the story has pulled me in and the exploration & combat has been fun so far.

It’s a shame EA cut and run and decided to shelve this franchise.

As someone who bought and played it Day 1, it got justly criticized. The game wasn't finished. Beyond the loads of glitches, issues that plagued me were quest lines were broken, dialog didn't sync up and combat needed balancing. Had they pushed out the game that you have now they may have gotten better scores, maybe. You can't patch away an uninspired story with ho-hum dialog and bad game design( See fetch quests).
 
Game is good, 7/10 or maybe an 8.
If it hadn't the mass Effect name it would've gotten praised, but since the prequels are masterpieces and this game wasn't, it got slammed. It's not like the earlier games wasn't buggy either, they were so not sure why people got hung up on that. I honestly think the internets f*** up at times, it seems to be the general law to hate ME3 because of the ending, I thought it worked just fine, sure they could've explain better what happened to everyone (they did patch the ending with just for that later) but all in all I'm fine with it.
Internet potates once in awhile, andromeda is fine (but perhaps not a worthy sequel to the franchise).

You might be right about Andromeda being more warmly received if it had nothing to do with Mass Effect franchise. But as I remember a big part of the negativity surrounding ME:A was about all the bugs and technical issues.

As someone who bought and played it Day 1, it got justly criticized. The game wasn't finished. Beyond the loads of glitches, issues that plagued me were quest lines were broken, dialog didn't sync up and combat needed balancing. Had they pushed out the game that you have now they may have gotten better scores, maybe. You can't patch away an uninspired story with ho-hum dialog and bad game design( See fetch quests).

I did read about how the story takes a nosedive in quality beyond the interesting initial setup which has hooked me for now. I can already tell you that I'm annoyed with the fetch quests. Last night after an awe inspiring time exploring my first ancient alien vault I did a side mission. It was a fetch quest with the waypoint directing me to that other side of the map. Traveling in the Mako is cool but not that cool so I logged off, haha. I probably won't spend too much time on side content but who knows because I really enjoy the combat and side missions give an excuse to keep shooting and generally being a futuristic jedi space knight. As you can tell my build is focusing on biotics.

Hey guys, thanks for your thoughts and insight as players of this game when it launched. As I said, I'm very early but I like it so far and it scratches a sci-fi itch I've had.
 
You might be right about Andromeda being more warmly received if it had nothing to do with Mass Effect franchise. But as I remember a big part of the negativity surrounding ME:A was about all the bugs and technical issues.



I did read about how the story takes a nosedive in quality beyond the interesting initial setup which has hooked me for now. I can already tell you that I'm annoyed with the fetch quests. Last night after an awe inspiring time exploring my first ancient alien vault I did a side mission. It was a fetch quest with the waypoint directing me to that other side of the map. Traveling in the Mako is cool but not that cool so I logged off, haha. I probably won't spend too much time on side content but who knows because I really enjoy the combat and side missions give an excuse to keep shooting and generally being a futuristic jedi space knight. As you can tell my build is focusing on biotics.

Hey guys, thanks for your thoughts and insight as players of this game when it launched. As I said, I'm very early but I like it so far and it scratches a sci-fi itch I've had.
Regarding bugs and glitches, I played it day one, or rather before that for about 5h on the trial via ea access. I'm not saying it was problem free, but I didn't feel it worse than the earlier games tbh. ME 1 is borderline unplayable today both in regards to gameplay and glitchy animations (story still great though) and I've played the original trilogy 3 full times (played ME1 five times) so i think you'd call me a fan. Side quest (except loyalty missions) has always been fetchy in ME, just don't do them, there's usually not any good reward anyway and it'll prob not carry over to the sequels. I just feel that the hate got out of hand. It's definitely the worst ME game in all regards except combat and graphics but as a game it shouldn't get any lower than 6.5/10 all things considered imo
 
Would give it a 7

Was fun and I never experienced any major glitches. Hope they continue the story