VideoGame_Discussion

Sun wrote:
Every once in awhile someone mentions taking video games out from the library. Pretty cool that some libraries offer this.

nonamesleft wrote:

Probably just me! I've played through a number of single-player games this way:

The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes
The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope
Horizon Forbidden West (didn't even install it)
The Last of Us: Part II
Life is Strange: True Colors
The Quarry
Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin
Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury (I only played Bowser's Fury since I beat 3D World on Wii U)
Tactics Ogre Reborn (didn't even get a chance to play it)
Tiny Tina's Wonderland (didn't play it very much)
TMNT: The Cowabunga Collection
TMNT: Shredder's Revenge
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy

I don't check out longer games since I know I won't finish them.

I put Marvel's Midnight Suns, Hogwarts Legacy and God of War: Ragnarok on hold request as well. Maybe I'll finish God of War (2018) by the time it's my turn for Ragnarok.

Sun wrote:
Wow. Some great games on there. And they have Switch games? Your library is

I'm not going to even bother checking my local library to see if they carry games. They almost certainly don't... okay, fine, I'll check, but only because you insisted

Somebody didn't like my R&C Rift Apart 7/10. Would love to hear from folks that would rate this higher in 2023.

Anxiouz wrote:

I didn’t neg you but I loved R&C A Rift Apart. Easy 8-9/10 for me.

Finally finished Yakuza 0. I'd give it a 8.5/10. Great game but got a bit repetitive.

I started Yakuza 1 (remake) the other day. Very similar to 0 except a little more lifeless? Hope I can make it through, it's OK so far.

sa330206 wrote:

I played 0 last year and enjoyed the story, but the gameplay does get repetitive. That’s why I haven’t finished Kiwami yet. It’s good in small spurts and will take a long time to finish as a result. I have all the games on PS4 but it’s gonna take a long time to get thru them all.

@Sun

I checked and, from what I can tell, only books and some movies. No video games. I didn't think they'd have any. Checked on the very slight chance that they would.

Frank wrote:

(Spoilers for Callisto Protocol in the spoiler tag for those who haven't played, don't click it)

Kommie wrote:

Yeah the tactical pistol was given way too late. Should have been the first gun, honestly. The five round burst is fun but overall, a worthless gun because you get the last gun not too long after.

As a normal adult man doing normal adult things, I tried out Teddy Together on 3DS today. It's basically like Nintendogs but with a talking teddy bear.

I got to Level 2 friendship and he went outside to see if he could make friends. Lots of kids around but he lamented there were no other bears so he couldn't make friends.

The dialog choice was between "I'm sure you'll make friends soon" (or something similar) and "Yep! No friends for you!" (That exact wording).

This game is simultaneously charming, a bit creepy, and hilarious at the same time.

@sa330206 Definitely don't try to play the Yakuza series back to back. They will feel insanely repetitive if you don't put some other games in between them. I try to play one per year. Out of the five I've played, I still like 0 the best.

Also beat the Callisto Protocol - 8/10 for me

Visually, one of the most impressive games I’ve seen this generation. It’s not exactly scary but I do like the atmospheric dread and melee heavy combat. I liked it more than most people because I felt like the length was just right for a single player game. Once I upgraded my grip gun, combat became a lot more fun. Not replayable but DLC would intrigue me to jump back in

Stray {} 7/10
I had heard the usual complaints about this game, such as the final game being different than what people were expecting from the initial announcement trailer. I guess you can put me in that category too. What's the deal with all this robot stuff? I just wanted to play as a cat, but they felt the need to complicate things with this super uninteresting story about robots.

I've heard it's a short game, but at one point I didn't even know if I wanted to finish it. There's even a trophy for beating the game in 2 hours, but I spent that much time alone just getting lost in the slums and not being able to find my away around because so much of the area just looked the same. Really, that is pretty early on into the game and it had me wanting to quit. I haven't finished the game yet, but once you get out of the slums/rooftops section the game gets slightly better.

I do want to give some kudos to whoever was responsible for the game's music. The bass sounds so good with the Pulse 3D headset, in the rare times you actually hear any music. As for the rest of the audio, it is just environmental effects and those sound alright too. I feel like there's nothing special about the graphics. The environments look nice at times, but overall I was expecting this to look better than it does. I know it's from a small studio so I guess they can be forgiven, but early on I had to double check and make sure I hadn't downloaded the PlayStation 4 version by mistake.

I think the game is just barely above average, but I'll add a +1 to the score because once in a while I catch my cat staring at the TV when I'm playing this and he doesn't usually do that for too many other games (Animal Crossing is another one he seems to like).

=-=

KeyWe {} 8/10
This is a pretty fun co-op game. You can play it solo, but it's clearly meant for two players, and you're playing as little kiwi birds working in a post office, sorting mail and stuff.
It sounds simple, but things can get pretty hectic in the later levels. This is definitely something where you can enjoy it with a friend that is as much into gaming as you, or a spouse that is more of a casual gamer.

there was nothing really going for Stray other than "cat game" and even then it doesn't save it from below mediocrity.

And yet 'Stray' keeps getting Game of the Year nods...somehow.

I love cats but that game had nothing interesting going on. If it were more in line with a typical puzzle game like Limbo, Another World, Heart of Darkness, or Little Nightmares and removed the force story nonsense it may have been better. The whole robot part/story crap was so bad.

The beginning where you just run and jump on stuff and be a cat was kinda cool, but the game lost me immediately after that.

Kommie wrote:

Been playing a lot of Fantasy Life for 3DS lately.

It reminds me of how much I miss Level 5 in the US market.

Not saying we need more Layton games after 5 and 6 though.

But their creativity when they aren't shackled to a single series/concept is pretty great.

benstylus wrote:

Looks like I got this one at some point but haven't played it yet.

I've had The Last of Us Part 2 on the shelf for awhile now, and just never felt in the mood to start it. But it fit the bill perfectly last night and I'm enjoying the story beats and the quality is as impressive as I was expecting. Naughty Dog really is something special. I do think that they introduce far too many characters too early, and jumping between them works as a narrative for a film but it makes it tough to connect with who I'm supposed to care about. I'm excited to see where this goes though.

PizzaTheHutt wrote:

I'm actually stuck here now. I felt like I mostly did everything in that area before stopping for the night. But then a week or so later when I resumed, I couldn't figure out where to go/what to do. I think I need to get 3 more soda cans for the merchant?, and then there is a clue about rooftops? (but I thought I did that already). But after running around the same area for 10-15 minutes I keep turning this off.

Anxiouz wrote:


Yeah you need to get up to the rooftops to advance (I think it was having to track down 4 books) and then briefly you will return to the slums area again before eventually moving on and not being able to return. Buying the last item from the merchant with 3 cans was optional, because I was only able to find two of the cans before I just gave up and left.

Freedom Wars - 7/10

I decided to start playing through some of my Vita backlog. This requires me to *gasp* open sealed games. First up is 'Freedom Wars.' I'm not much of a 'Monster Hunter' guy, as this is often compared to, and while the game is designed for players to team up and take down larger creatures, that's not all of it so far (hello rescuing civilians...). The premise of being jailed and working off time by running these missions is interested, and detailed, yet still doesn't feel fleshed out. I'm only a few missions in, but most of the non-mission, non-cutscene interactions is just your character and their accessory (android companion) in your cell. Missions take place in essentially arenas, so no interconnected world like 'Monster Hunter' or 'Toukiden.' It makes the world feel really lifeless, but the game does look good. Controls are a bit cumbersome, but I'm getting used to them. My concern is that, since this was so heavily designed to be played with others, and from what I've read online, the end of the game might be impossible if playing solo. There's no difficulty options, and your character doesn't level up per say (just better gear and weapons), so we'll see how far I can get. But this game is still exclusive to Vita. So there's that.

Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX {} 5/10
Despite my first childhood console back in the day being a Sega Master System, I had never played an Alex Kidd game prior to this one. I remember reading about them in issues of Sega Visions but for whatever reason they just never made it onto my lists of games I wanted when I'd visit Toys R Us. If this is how they played, then I don't think I made the wrong decision by excluding them.

I feel like if you have even a little bit of nostalgia for this series in the 80s, you might be able to overlook just how utterly mediocre this game is. By the time I had reached the second or third level I started to question how likely I am to finish this game, and that's a bad sign for any game. I'm at the halfway point now and I think this is about where I'm gonna end it and move on to something else. To make up for the game's frustratingly high difficulty, you are given the option to play with infinity lives, but that didn't do anything to change my opinion of how much not-fun I was having playing this. However I made it as far into the game as I did only because of that option.

In addition to the infinite lives option you also have the option to make the controls feel more responsive and less floaty, but it warns you that doing so removes his sliding ability and will make some parts of the game unreachable. You also have the option to make the collission detection a little better. Both of those are good options to have. It's still a frustrating game, just a little bit easier to tolerate with those options enabled.
The graphics are the one area I will say look nice. And with the tap of the R2 button you can instantly toggle between the modern HD graphics and the retro graphics of the original game. That's a neat touch but too bad there isn't a button you can tap that will make the game fun.

PizzaTheHutt wrote:

Try the power button.

Honestly I never had an issue with the platforming and stuff in the game, just the stupid rock paper scissors crap that you have to either memorize or be lucky with.

I know Jan-ken-pon is huge in Japan to the point where a $10+ million auction deal was notably awarded to Christie's instead of Sotheby's over the results of one play, but in video games it's just not fun at all.

Inscryption - ?/10 - I sorta want to like this, but once I get past boss 1, all the flying enemies and the ones who hide just slaughter me immediately. Annoying.

I have that on my wishlist but hoping it just gets added to ps plus one day so i can try it (like slay the spire)

I finished FF12 (left a lot of side content but not compelled to keep going, though I enjoyed it a lot)and am now playing through Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy - dated (controls are trash) but i really like it, it’s so tense at times

Also doing Spyro Reignited trilogy and Dark Pictures Little Hope co-op, fun games i wouldnt play solo

The Pedestrian {} 8/10
I had this in my eShop wishlist for a bit, so once I saw it was one of the games offered when I upgraded to PS+ Premium it was the first game I chose to download. This is a pretty fun 2D puzzle/platformer.
It looks like it is going to be a short game, but I'm still undecided if I will finish it or not. It's not because I'm not enjoying it, but this is a game that I've already played enough of to know that I wouldn't mind buying it in the future. Plus puzzle games usually take me a while to beat because I gotta be in a certain mood before I even want to start playing them.

This is a pretty unique puzzle game where you are arranging a path for this stick figure dude to be able to reach his goal. You have to connect different segments so you can enter a door in one and exit in another. That's probably a crappy way of describing the game, but I'll just say that it's more fun than I make it sound.

@PizzaTheHutt This feels like deja-vu, 1st Omno, now The Pedestrian. I beat The Predestrian on last year via GP and it was pretty good. It's not too long, but yeah it gets a little stale with puzzles. But they do add in more variety enough so that I wasn't annoyed. A few were a shade challenging, but I don't think I had to resort to Google. Pretty sure I 1k GS'd it as well, as there weren't any Achievements that were too bad, or that I didn't mind replaying a section/puzzle to get if I missed them.

Evil West. This game is way better than it should be. 8/10

God of War: Ragnarok. It’s gotta be a 10/10 right? I think it’s damn close if it’s not a 10. Some of the puzzles and running around got annoying, but they more than made up for it literally everywhere else.

Grime - I want to like this more but something is missing. Or there are just too many mechanics or something... Not really sure what exactly I'm not liking here.

Ratchet & Clank: A Rift Apart: - Super boring. Never played a game in the series, so I didn't expect quite so much dull cover shooting at the start. Seems more aimed at kids, so that's my problem.

DBZ: Kakarot: I am utterly baffled by the controls. Stuff outside of combat feels like filler.

Still chugging along on GrindStone. Not sure if it's fun, but it sure is addictive.

Life Is Strange: Before The Storm {} 7/10
I dunno man. It has been so long since I've played the original Life Is Strange, I don't remember a whole lot of it (I recorded a chunk of my playthrough of it and plan to watch it at some point as a refresher) but I remember the story being one of the best of these types of games. It was really well written. I'm not getting that from this game though. What I also don't remember about the previous game is the controls being this clunky. Yuck. Or maybe they were and the story was just so good it was easy to overlook something like that, but that ain't the case this time. I'm about to enter Episode 3, so if something major happens maybe I'll come back to edit this score, but as of now it is good, but not great.

Not sure it fully belongs here but just went through Radiohead’s Kid A Mnesia Exhibition on PS5

Holy crap what a journey. Some of the rooms/songs especially were seriously incredible, transcendent even. There’s definitely a lot of stuff I missed but I did try to explore as much as possible, gave it about an hour and a half maybe.
Absolutely use headphones for this, or a really good surround sound system, trust me
I’m surprised they didnt make a VR version AFAIK, seems perfect for it
There’s no gameplay except walking around but you can influence what’s happening a bit, at times. The atmosphere is really something

@theJaw i think you’d dig this, I remember you being a fan of radiohead

Signalis - Honestly have no idea what this game is about but I like it. Just beat the first boss. It's like a top-down Resident Evil-style game, I guess. 6 item inventory limit. Enemies can get back up/respawn after being killed unless you shove a flare-up their butt-hole.

Just beat Yakuza Kiwami. I gave 0 a 8.5 so I'll give this one a 7. It was good but so much more empty than 0. It was definitely a step back from 0. Had most of the same minigames but just had overall less going on. I think I'll take the advice posted here and start a different game before jumping into Yakuza Kiwami 2.

Yeah makes sense since 0 came out later, they had time to refine it. Kiwami 1/2 are just remakes of the PS2 originals. I think 0 came out after Yakuza…5 maybe?

I have all the Yakuza games via PS plus but have only beaten Kiwami and Kiwami 2 for now. Definitely not a series to play back to back games, easy burnout that way.

I started playing Judgment and its kinda cool that I already know the city/map so well as it’s the same one as the Yakuza games. It’s basically a Yakuza game, but just different enough to not be

sa330206 wrote:

The problem with Kiwami is that it was a remake, vs. 0 they got to build from scratch. So Kiwami had to stick to the framework of the original title.

Has anyone played Where the Heart Leads?

I started it the other day and it’s really something, I find myself wanting to jump back into the world and even when I’m not playing I think about some of the choices I made, it’s an engrossing game.
There’s no voice acting, it’s mostly just reading a lot of text and walking around and interacting with human-shaped shiny blobs and doing tasks, but it still somehow feels so “alive”. I feel like I actually live in that town

It’s definitely not for everyone but I would say if it -seems- up your alley conceptually, it probably will be

0 is the most massive Yakuza game so if you are wanting them all to be that packed you will be disappointed. Personally after 5 and 0 I was happy that 6 was shorter. I think it's going to be rough for you when you get to 3/4/5. 3 especially could of used an actual remake at this point. My favorite part of 5 is some peoples least favorite so ymmv on that one lol.

I'm pretty excited for Ishin. First "new" game I will have played since Elden Ring. I need to play Lost Judgment but if I start it I know I won't finish the current game I'm playing. Maybe I should just drop it, idk, not been feeling games lately.

God of War: Ragnarok

What an amazing game and story. These guys prove again that you can do a lengthy single player game without going for the Ubisoft openworld style. Gameplay, music, sound, characters, boss fights, the story and how it is presented....it is all amazing. It ends so freaking cool and satisfying too! Im playing endgame stuff now and Im impressed theyre still telling you stuff through dialogue when you revisit areas. Very neat.

Personally, this is a 10/10 in my book. But to be fair to other practically perfect games Ill just lower it a bit, only because there were 2 things that would distract me from time to time; some scenes had lip sync issues and also that some NPCs animated rather poorly or robotic sometimes. I notice some of the stuff wasnt motion captured and the difference was distracting.

9.8/10