VideoGame_Discussion

I must have screwed up my progression in DC because I was missing 2 runes after I finished the game. I’m in BC 3 and just grabbed the last one. So now I can open up lots of other zones.

Ive been playing Prince of Persia Lost Crown. Feels like a solid 9 so far.

The Lost Crown is so most definitely a 9/10. Enjoy that little gem. It’s the best thing Ubi put out in the past 5+ years.

I'm playing Lost Crown as well. Just got to the boss in the Sand Pit area.

Red Matter {2} 9/10

This is easily one of the best looking PSVR2 games I've played yet, which is even more impressive since this is a last-gen VR game (from 2018-ish) and from a fairly small studio. I've read it's a bit on the short side at around 3-4 hours, so I expect to have it finished by this evening, but I'm really enjoying it. It's a pure puzzle game, so far there hasn't been any type of action to it, just puzzle after puzzle. A couple of the puzzles made me feel like a damn genius when I figured them out, which is something every puzzle game should be aiming for.

PizzaTheHutt wrote:
I enjoyed this game, too! It was a game that made me think - like how an Isaac Asimov sci-fi book might make one ponder ethics, morality, and humanity - particularly later in the game as Nilin learns more about her family/past.

I don't remember a lot about the combat other than it wasn't easy for me to keep up a complex combo streak (I'm not good at rote memorization of button combos). I also played on easy-mode, so, even if I fumbled in melee, I still managed to keep the game going along.

It's a game I want to replay - I started to do so a few years ago, on a harder difficulty level that was just too challenging for me. A remaster or sequel would be nice, even if the sequel had a different character but was set in the same lore world.

PizzaTheHutt wrote:

I played it on Quest 2 and it looked pretty good at the time and I liked the game overall. But a 9 seems quite generous. I stopped about halfway through for months and then finished it up. It was a nice journey but it's unlikely I'll ever play it again.

Red Matter 2 looks even better and more impressive although I haven't personally played it.

Alone In The Dark 2024

4/10

When the game works performance wise it’s like a blend of Alan Wake, Resident Evil and Evil Within but there’s just too many bugs and glitches, game breaking ones like what I just encountered shortly into the game in chapter 2, to recommend this game safely to anyone. What’s ironic is the devs just came out with an 11gb patch fixing a plethora of things but seems to have created a new set of problems like the progression bug I just had in my save file. For shame. This game could have been something great too if its quality were better and controls didn't feel so stiff and wonky. The acting is pretty good too from David Harbour and Jodie Comer so it’s one of those neat ideas with poor execution.

I'm still going through some games before my sub runs out in a couple of weeks.

Hollow Knight - I'm pretty much over Metroidvanias / 10

My wife gave this a try a couple of years ago because she likes platformers, and I heard how good 'Hollow Knight' was, but she didn't get far. It then took me three or four different attempts to continue before I stuck with it. Even now, about 10 hours in and halfway through the bosses, I need an extended break from the game.

It's not the game itself. On its own, it's very well done and the music is excellent. But I think I'm just over Metroidvanias. I really wanted to get the new 'Prince of Persia,' but the thought of another of these games has put me off. In the end, it doesn't matter how well made a game is, I'm tired of retreading old ground either for general A to B traversal or upon death. I'm tired of seemingly making progress only to come to a dead end because I don't have a skill yet to let me progress. Of the 10 hours so far, I feel about 60% of that has been those two elements. I've opened up nearly all the map, and have felt like I've barely done anything.

I won't beat this by the time my sub is up, but I do want to complete it. The physical PS4 version is currently out of stock, but I'm contemplating getting it once it's back. Or maybe a deep digital sale.


Horizon Chase Turbo - Should be more enjoyable / 10

I love the vibe. I love the music, even though it's incredibly repetitive. This is another game I've started and stop many times over the years, but most recently I've powered through to make more progress than any of the previous starts. It mainly comes down to the bumper car element of the races. There's always 19 NPC cars, and the player always starts in the back. Depending on the track, it's extremely easy to get blocked from passing, and every time a car hits another car, they bounce off each other. It's definitely worse for the player. I've only ever seen one NPC crash. If the player can't get ahead of enough of the pack early in the race, it's nearly impossible, even with perfect driving and excellent stats, to catch up to first. Now, it's not necessary to get first in each race to move on, nor collect all the coins, but going for 100% it is necessary for both. The racing an be exhilarating, but the player's car is somewhat on auto-pilot in the turns. It's more about managing those turns and avoiding other cars than managing a race line.

Usually I get a handful of races in, the bottom-line game mechanics rear their ugly heads, I get frustrated and have to stop playing. I'm about halfway through the main single-player campaign, but I don't think I'll beat this before my sub is up either. Hopefully the sequel addresses my complaints, because I'm not the only one with them.


Firewall: Zero Hour - Must play with others / 10

I haven't played VR for a while, and I was itching to get back to it. I've heard nothing but great things about 'Firewall,' so I was looking forward to it. Yes, it is a realistic, squad-based shooter akin more to 'Rainbow Six.' The game looks and runs really well, but the overall image is really soft.

Despite the devs claims all over the place, including in the game's description, there really isn't a single-player. What there is, is the ability to play any of the maps for practice, solo. The player's character movement is very slow, so playing solo feels like a slog. The "run" setting is most games' "walk." I wish movement was a little faster and the game at least populated the solo practice sessions with ally NPCs. As it stands, "single-player" is good for learning maps, but not much else. That leaves the multiplayer. Everything else is online. Not my kind of jam, and whenever the servers inevitably close, that means there's not much of a game left. Thankfully, it's easy to find a match still (it helps that PSVRs's 'Ultra' was not well received), so currently, for people into this type of shooter, there's still plenty of fun to be had.


Until You Fall - A fun rogue-lite that isn't 'Hades' / 10

It's no secret I'm not a fan of rogue-lites/likes/whatevers. 'Hades' being the exception, but because the story keeps me going. That said, I enjoy 'Until You Fall' quite a bit! Drenched in neon, the arenas are small and quick to complete, which goes a long way to keeping my attention. You can equip a weapon in each hand, and the gameplay almost feels like a first-person versions of the Wii's 'Skyward Sword,' with blocking and attack motions that must be mimicked at times. Controls are tight and the game is sharp. The music gets repetitive, but there is a bit of a narrative through-line by way of a disembodied voice. At the end of each section, a boost for that run can be selected, and after each run, currency can be spent on permanent upgrades. It's fun! If the arenas were much larger and sections much longer, the game would probably drag and I wouldn't enjoy it as much as I do, but I'll definitely be getting this the next time it's on sale. The only crap thing is that the dev abandoned the PSVR1 version pretty quickly and there's no upgrade path to PSVR2. They claim the latter is almost a new game. I guess so, since next to none of the updates and DLC made it into the PSVR1 version. Oy.

I love metroidvanias, but I take a break between playing them so as to not get burnt on the genre. The same applies to other genres like JRPGs and brawlers.

Currently playing Prince of Persia and it is amazing. I will certainly need a break after Im done with it though.

Yeah that's definitely a good idea. I think for me I don't like the general concept of a Metroidvania from the start. So while I love platformers, I don't enjoy the gameplay overall of being forced to go back and forth.

Looking back, the last Metroidvania I played/beat was 'Tails of Iron' two months ago. The backtracking, etc. isn't that bad in that game because it's smaller and shorter. Before that it was 'Axiom Verge' a whole year ago. So I haven't played many recently.

I was thinking about this recently, because open-world games are essentially 3D Metroidvanias, but I can play those back-to-back-to-back easily. However, given the 3D space, there's multiple ways to traverse back to previous areas and it can be wildly different each time depending on the game. Whereas in 2D Metroidvanias, there's usually only one way and it's exactly the same every time. It's the sameness of the 2D games that wears me down and raises dread of traversing the map. Although more linear 3D games like the 'Prime' series play more like said 2D games, and that drives me nuts too.

I have such a weird relationship with Metroidvanias and I've decided that just because I love Super Metroid doesn't mean I have to keep trying to find another game that makes me feel the way that game made me feel. I don't bother with the genre any more. I did love Dust: An Elysian Tail and Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight, though. Like I really, really loved Momodora. So much so that I went on a bit of a binge trying to find something else that was just as good. I tried Hollow Knight, Axiom Verge, Timespinner, Bloodstained, Indivisible, Iconoclasts and a couple of others that people rate highly and didn't like them at all. They are all good games mechanically, if that makes sense, but playing them felt like a chore. So I decided I won't bother with them any more.

I’ve been playing the heck out of dead cells. It’s a metroidvania rouge like. It’s a bit unique in that it is traditional explore, find skills etc for a few runs and then it becomes perfect the gameplay, find the fastest route, best weapons etc. it’s meant to be played until you’re proficient enough to playthrough it all in one life. In a way it kind of changes from rogue like to speed run metroidvania after you get gud. It’s pretty fun. I haven’t been wowed by a metroidvania since SotN to be honest.

Pretty Big fan of Metroidvanias and for me the key is the combat. If that's enjoyable I'll generally stick with it. Good visuals and music helps too.

As for Horizon Chase Turbo, I played that on my phone a long while ago, then got and enjoyed it on PC before taking a break until more recently finally trying the Senna DLC. I loved Top Gear on the as a kid so the game and music resonated for me. But going back for the DLC soured my overall view. Hitting the other cars and the mechanics just got boring. I completed the story mode but just didn't bother with some additional events.
Then I replayed Top Gear for the RTT GotM last month and enjoyed that, so there's just something that TG nails that HCT misses a bit. Likely some personal nostalgia is at play too.

I like metroidvanias quite a bit and have heard great things about Hollow Knight. But I've tried on 4 separate occasions to get into it and just can't. It's dull and not very satisfying to me.

The recent Prince of Persia was great. I think the diversity of the different areas, the combat, the upgrade system, and not being entirely blocked at any point all come together well and kept me playing. Same goes for the Ori games, love 'em.

I've ironically never play 'Super Metroid.' I should get on that. I'd like to play 'The Lost Crown,' but it being a Ubisoft game, I know it'll be cheaper than it currently is. The Ori games are probably my favorite Metroidvanias, but those are more about traversal than combat, and have great shortcuts. The different biomes help immensely too.

I do think combat is key for these games. 'Hollow Knight' has great combat, but some of the enemies, while varied, feel a bit cheap (the flyers). But no matter how good combat is, if I just want to get from point A to B, I skip as much of it as possible anyway. And unfortunately, everything is more or less the same color in 'Hollow Knight.'

Oh man Super Metroid is probably my fave sidescrolling Metroid game next to Fusion. Def get on it!

TalonJedi87 wrote:
Was a fun game. I played it sometime within the past few years and chronicled my progress/adventure here:

https://gametz.com/VideoGame_Discussion/im-finally...

(Took me awhile to find this. Had to look in archived stuff)

Heavyd814life wrote:

Metroid games are in a whole nother level IMO. They just feel right in every aspect. Id say I love the genre but Ive given up on quite a few of them. The Axiom Verge games come to mind. Hollow Knight was rough at the start, but it grabbed me after quite a few hours and I ended up loving it. Its really hard tho.

Playing PoP (even though I love it so far) I feel like these games shouldnt go past 10 hours to beat. They should be cheap, short and sweet. Same with beat'em ups.

I loved Hollow Knight but yeah.... It's excessively, unnecessarily long for a Metroidvania.

kevolones wrote:

I feel like we need to move away from the concept of a game's price being dependent on its length. That's part of what brought us into the age of "every major game release is a 100+ hour open world full of fetch quests and other things you've done a million times before"

Those games are great foe people who are able to hyperfocus on them and immerse themselves, but I think most of them have about 10 hours of interesting game ideas and 90 hours of fluff or random walking around looking for the 10 hours of good stuff.

Of course the cynical side of me says publishers spend all that time adding uninteresting content not just to try to justify the price tag of the game, but also so they can then turn around and push microtransactions to sell you boosts to cut down on the amount of that boring crap you have to play.

TalonJedi87 wrote:

I will...someday. I have beaten 'Metroid: Samus Returns' and loved it (especially after hating the original as a kid). I was lukewarm on 'Dread' though.

benstylus wrote:

I agree, specially nowadays I would rather play a short game. But getting your money's worth out of the game is a complicated topic anyway.

A 3 hour long game at $70 very likely wouldnt be well received. Or at least I personally would not buy it day 1. I like ACGs style of rating a game for that aspect.

Definitely not a black and white subject. Games like GoW are great but often one and done. Something like dead cells I paid 9.99 for has consumed way more of my time but the experience is definitely not on par. A difficult thing to put value on. As I get older I need a coping mechanism but my time is (relatively) way more valuable than it was years past. I’ve gotten to the point as long as I’m not stressed after and get some me time it’s all worth it.

Been playing Talos Principle, really really dig it. Nearly done with the main part (tons of stars to collect still)

Croteam did good

DrizzDrizzDrizz wrote:


This is a game I had heard of, but didn't know who developed it. I didn't realize Croteam did anything other than Serious Sam.

Anxiouz wrote:


Originally I gave it an 8, then a few hours later went back to the game to finish it and then edited to a 9. I thought the puzzles were well thought out, though maybe I only felt that way because I had been playing a co-op puzzle game with my friend called We Were Here: Together. and the puzzles are so frustrating because everything is just left up to you and your friend to figure out, usually nothing is explained to you, so maybe Red Matter's puzzles in comparison to that just felt better designed because the clues are usually right in front of you if you take the time to scan everything in the room. I don't usually have the patience for puzzle games to begin with, so it also helped that I was able to finish this one without the help of a guide which I think should ultimately be the goal of every puzzle game; instead of making the player feel dumb, make them feel like they accomplished something.

DOOM 3 VR Edition {} 8/10

I'm a DOOM fanboy, and I have several good memories of DOOM 3 in particular. First, you can't deny back in 2004 that it was one of the most impressive looking games released up to that point. Then I remember beating it in co-op over Xbox Live with my nephew back in 2005, and we had a blast and finished it in one sitting and it was his first time beating a game in co-op online (my first was Duke Nukem 3D on the Sega Saturn). Too bad that was the only version of the game that had the co-op mode, because with Xbox Live servers down for OG Xbox we'll never get to relive that again.

I buy the DOOM games (and Quake and Duke Nukem 3D) on pretty much everything they release on, even if I have no intention on actually playing them because I've already played them to death, they're just games I want to have on everything. When this got released for PlayStation VR I bought it day one. Sure, it took me 3 years to finally get around to playing it, but that's irrelevant. It's as fun now as it would've been 3 years ago.

The original DOOM 3 was 17 years old when this VR Edition released, and this was released as a budget title with a $20 price tag. You can't beat that price, but what that budget price should also tell you is not to expect them to have gone back and fixed any of the game's faults, such as how the game pauses for around 3-5 seconds when it needs to auto-save. We are far beyond the point where games should need to do that anymore, but the team responsible for this port weren't hired to reinvent the wheel, they were just tasked with giving you a way to play DOOM 3 in VR. Which by the way not only is vanilla DOOM 3 included here, the two expansions are as well, so you're going to get a lot of bang for your buck with this. The main DOOM 3 campaign alone is over 10 hours long, then the two expansions are maybe three or four additional hours each. I typically complain about how short most VR games are, but this game doesn't have that problem.

The graphics, and what I said earlier about it being one of the best looking games at the time it released in 2004...well, that doesn't hold true two decades later. I wouldn't exactly say the game looks ugly, but I recorded around one hour of footage the first time I played, and the video came out looking alright, but in the headset itself things have a sort of low res look. Also, they really should have adjusted certain things, like for example the enemies are kind of smaller than they should be and thus look and feel less threatening. NPC character models are just funny looking with their small heads. Oh, and I guess to be expected from a flat-to-VR port, but the cutscenes are all 2D and you can't even skip them. The frame-rate is silky smooth at all times though, and that's always something you like to see.

As for the audio, I have no complaints. The soundtrack is good and so are the ambient noises around the environment, they really help to make things feel tense when you're exploring a dark area and waiting for your flashlight to recharge.

Controls are fine, though I have had some tracking issues with the DualShock 4, but I won't blame the game for that. I don't have an Aim Controller to play it with, but I've heard that is the best way to play it (as is often the case with any game that supports it).

For the rest of the game, there's a little more backtracking than I'd like (and you don't even get a map), but the two expansions get rid of that and go back to the roots. There's more of a horror element to this DOOM than its predecessors, and even though I've beaten this a few times before, being in VR now really ups the tension and there have been a few times where an enemy scared the crap out of me in a dark area where I couldn't see it, and I definitely like that in my VR games. Overall though for $20 and the amount of content included here, I don't know why this game gets left out of so many "must play PSVR titles" lists, because it definitely belongs there.

Spirit of the North {} 6/10

Here we've got another one of those indie games that starts you off with a brief cutscene that explains nothing to the player about the journey you are about to embark on. There's no dialog, and I think they put the bare minimum in place for a story so they can leave it up to "viewer interpretation", which imo often comes off as lazy because not enough games do it right. To be determined if this game nails it or not.

I won't lie, seeing screenshots of this in the eShop reminded me of the games The First Tree and Never Alone and that's why I bought it. A platformer/adventure game with some puzzles sprinkled in sounded good at the time. Speaking of those screenshots though, they're a lie. Those were clearly taken from the big boy console and PC versions, because it looks nowhere near that good on Switch, in fact at times it looks down right ugly, with low res, blurry textures. Nintendo needs to put a stop to that kind of crap. For Switch owners it's like when a fast food chain advertises their new burger and once it's in your hands you realize it looks nowhere near as good as it did in the commercial. I thought this would be one of those occasional games that actually looks better in handheld mode because the smaller screen can hide its flaws, but that's not the case here.

Controls can be finicky at times too, which can really screw you over on some of the platforming sections. Overall after looking into it, it seems this will be a fairly short game at 5-ish hours. I'm around 2 hours into it and was actually debating if I should just restart it on PS5 since it's in the PS+ Extra catalog now and labeled as "Enhanced Edition", but after checking a review it looks like the graphics were the only thing enhanced and the platforming controls are still kinda messy, so I'll stick with this version and delete it to free up space immediately after.

Prince of Persia The Lost Crown - 9/10

System Shock remake ps5 -

I've been a fan of the original game since it came out 30 years ago. I pledged the kickstarter for it, choosing to get it on ps4 (which ultimately included ps5). There was development trouble and people still complain about it. But, ultimately the promise was fulfilled and I'm satisfied after playing and completing the game.

If you haven't heard of it, it's an "immersive sim", like a rougher version of Bioshock. Instead of an underwater city, you play as a cybernetically enhanced hacker on a space station. It's a first person shooter with audio logs you find along the way that tell the story. The villain is SHODAN an AI that had its ethical restraints removed.

It's a challenging game that doesn't hold your hand. There is no quest menu or arrow showing you which way to go. There are just the audio logs and hints they give you as to what to do next. Using a notebook to write things down is advisable. Most people will use a guide. Combat is often brutal, even on the lowest difficulty. Save often. The maps are convoluted. This is a PC game that was ported to consoles. Some of the controls are awkward and aiming with a joypad instead of a mouse is a challenge. Despite all that, you get used to it, learn to play better and it get focused on beating it.

bill wrote:

Was waiting to see how you felt about this one. I remember playing the pc release in high school, and the sequel in my dorm room in college. I definitely want to revisit this. It was the next step up from all the id clones for me.

Yeah, my memory of SS was like that too. Doom was this huge breakthrough in terms of full-screen movement and action. Then SS added so much depth to the story... immersion. It was janky for sure though and rough. Some of that roughness is still in the remake for sure.

SS2 was a better game and is still fairly playable. I'd like to see a remake of that, but we'll see.

For the remake, I got all the trophies except "win on the hardest difficulty". I'm not sure I'll go for that, but maybe later if I run low on good stuff to play. I had seen some old posts about achievements being messed up, but it was fine.

I'm not sure if there will be another patch, but I did see some people listing bugs they wanted fixed. Once I got past the initial controls issues (learned to workaround them), I didn't find the game buggy.

Been playing Dragon Dogma 2 via portal. I’ve maybe put 5 hours or so into it so far. Aside from the washed out graphics (I’m coming off of Tsushima so that’s part of the problem) and some janky game play, I’m digging it so far. The lack of fast travel is shameful.

Been on a bit of a BioWare kick the last two months or so. Finally finished my latest Dragon Age: Origins playthrough on the Steam Deck and I'm done with ME1 and the main story of ME2 on the PS5. Going through the DLC content now and just finished up Lair of the Shadow Broker. Easily the best piece of single player DLC I've ever played. It just holds up so damn well. Most of the game does. There are certain older games where the art direction is just so on point that they hold up so well even today. The OG BioShock is another game like that. My brother played through it for the first time last weekend. I watched and helped him through most of it. It came out 17 years ago which is just insane when I think about it. The only thing that didn't really age very well is the hacking minigame which is even more tedious than I remember it being. But I think I may replay all three games in the series at some point this year.

Heavyd814life wrote:
There are certain older games

The OG BioShock is my GOAT. Love the lore.

Both my son and I have been fighting over the disc(s) to Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora (XSX) and we're both having a great time leap-frogging each other with our progress. I'd have to imagine we've each sunk 20+ hours into it. Sure it's repetitious and the world is far too big, but I'm really enjoying the game. It's also interesting how different we're playing the game...he's doing loads of stealth and crafting and I'm just powering through with guns and buying my upgrades.

It also has a 40fps mode which is something I've really been enjoying when games support it. The game looks and plays really good and it's a nice mix of smoothness and quality. I hope more games do this until we finally reach the 4k/60fps/RT standard (maybe the next gen?).

Escape Academy {} 8/10

My friend and I are enjoying this a lot. It's an escape room game that can be played single player or with a friend in two player co-op (co-op is the way to go) with some good puzzles that are not too easy but also won't leave you frustrated due to the game failing to give any explanation (I'm lookin' at you, We Were Here series...)

There's one annoying bug in the game where if time runs out before you've completed the puzzle and you choose to continue with a little more time added, it never lets my friend do anything unless we restart the level completely. I don't know if it has anything to do with the fact she's playing on PS4 and I'm playing on PS5. I've reached out to the devs about it but haven't heard back yet, but this is so far my only real gripe with the game, and the fact that the game is 2 years old and this still hasn't been fixed yet.

Disney/Pixar UP {} 5/10

I'm playing this via PlayStation 5 and I don't know why. I was in the mood for a kind of laid back platformer and I don't know what made me choose this one, considering I've never watched the movie it's based on (I've heard good things though), and I still have unplayed 2023 releases that I should be playing instead of this. And no, I'm not playing it for an easy platinum trophy, because they didn't add trophies to this game like they do with some of the other classic games in the PS+ Premium tier, so I can't even use that as an excuse.

As utterly average as I feel this game is, I still admit that it's better than a lot of the licensed games that were being released when I was a kid, that's for damn sure. If I was 9 years old when this game released 15 years ago, I'm sure I'd have gotten more enjoyment from it than I am now. Back then I wouldn't have had decades of playing far better platformers than this.

If you have seen the movie then you know what to expect. You play as this young child and an old man and swap back-and-forth between them as needed. Unfortunately the one that you're not controlling will hardly ever be useful for anything. If this had released now instead of 2009, I think (or hope) they would have designed it as more of a co-op game instead. But what we ended up with is an average platformer with average (and at times repetitive) level design.

This is based on the PS2/PC version of the game instead of the PS3/Wii/360 version, which first off still kinda blows my mind that new PS2 games were even still getting released in 2009. According to the Wikipedia page the PS2/PC/PSP version is longer due to having more levels. I assume the extra levels are the lame river levels where you're sitting on a log and paddling your way upstream and avoiding hazards. I really didn't like those levels, and if there were more of them then I would've abandoned the game by now (I think there are 3 or 4 total, but 1 was enough). The straightforward platformer levels are decent, though at times can be troublesome during the sections requiring you to swing across gaps, the character just never seems able to consistently grab whatever they're supposed to swing from.