Pierre42

It wasn't that long ago that I played ME1 (ME3 was out) and I loved it's combat system. It felt like a proper RPG in the same veins as KOTOR was but with a little bit of action.

I remember in one of the boss fights I'd got to grips with the system enough to just silence the boss, drop their shields and make them fly through the air in the space of a second through a coordinated attack.

ME2 streamlines it more in the way of a third person shooter but I'll always have a special place and love ME1's system.

@veggiesbro:

Menu Screen of the Year

(And that counts for something, I think Galak-Z won Best Sttyyyyyllle the last year largely on the strength of it's pause menu)

Tokyo Mirage Sessions is great but might require a bit of both hands for exploration.

That said bravely default has a one handed control system!

Also yeah Civ. That game can take so much time you could easily spend your recovery on a couple of games of that (least I could).

Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE

This game OOOOZES style but it utterly got dropped off the radar when Austin left. The Showbiz aesthetic is just everywhere in this game (Switching Party members is called "Casting", the Status Menu is called "Artists" and looks like a profile page in a celebrity magazine including updates on the characters careers, all battles are fought on a stage with an audience, the special additional attack system called "sessions", I could go on an on) and it's so good and colourful I think it could really stick it for best style this year.

That said the battle system is pretty great too. For people who know the Persona 4 Endurance run, they basically take the additional attacks from befriending your allies and say "What if EVERYONE could do that?" and it becomes a core part of the gameplay with every ally jumping in on sessions to help with combat. It feels great once you get to grips with it and makes it really worthwhile to exploit enemy weaknesses.

The game does FANTASTIC side content too, the side stories will unlock new unique abilities, attacks, dope costumes and advance your party member's careers as well. Do a sidequest for the Punk-looking Popstar Kiria and she performs a new song that you get a whole beautifully rendered performance of.

Seeing these cutscenes alone isn't the sole reward, since you can then perform variations on these new performances in battle! For the above song it triggers randomly when you cast an ice spell to become a SUPER ice spell. It's a small nice bonus touch that keeps the battles fresh and exciting because RNG can deal you up any number of interesting little random limits. It also makes you really want to do the sidequests because the rewards are meaningful. Of course for those crying "Oh but RNG limits are bad" then you also unlock performances that can be triggered by spending a limited resource which also do cool cutscene things like that.

It's the perfect Persona-lite for people waiting for Persona 5 and it's got so much silliness but lovingly handcrafted silliness and some real heartfelt moments too. It's dopey most of the time but it's enjoyable. Really I think it's a shame as it'll probably get overlooked for any GOTY stuff due to the lack of Austin to bat for it but it would definitely deserve being talked about and played at least.

If you've got a WiiU it's a pretty good RPG to get.

Edit: Warms my heart to see other folks recommending it here as well.

Hmm I'm 25 and I've played about every Metal Gear I could get my hands on, even the Ac!d ones.

It's a great series I hope you enjoy it. MGS1-3 being wrapped up by 4 is a masterpiece in direction if you don't mind a little less gameplay.

@teddie:

Oh man tell me what constitutes being the "worst person I could possibly be?" I guess you brutalised Falcone but who is the guy who gets impaled on TV at episode 4?

@redyoshi:

ALFRED GETS A SWEET EYEPATCH?! My line of thinking went something actually different. It wasn't "They can't kill off Alfred," it was more "they can't let her live and know," because someone who knows Batman's identity is crippling. Fate proved us both right haha. It made for a cool finale really where we both fight with our masks off and then she blasts part of Bruce's ear off. I'm in agreement with other folks that the final fightscene was really pretty great when it works. Whenever I think of QTE fights I harken back to the Krauser vs Leon knife fight in RE4 as the Gold Standard and this one felt smooth exciting and dynamic as I'd hoped. Her Jet boots and concussion staff making her a pretty good match for a techless Batman. Hell the fact it was Vicky who turned out to be Lady Arkham was pretty unique too.

As for his face, he gets like a slight bruising from the beating penguin gave him but he's perfectly normal looking. In that one he mentions the drug caused some stuff from his childhood to resurface according to his therapist. Then he starts to act out the other personality with the coin. Starts getting paranoid that the Children of Arkham are everywhere and comes down hard on them.

I asked Selina to leave. Episode 3 really hammers home how Harvey thought he actually had a relationship with Selena and so I felt really bad for betraying him. Felt it was right to distance myself a bit after that.

By the way was the huge blue henchman meant to be Solomon Grundy or something?

So with the release of episode 5 the first season of Batman: The Telltale Series comes to a close and I'm eager to know what y'all thought of it as well.

I'll get this out of the way first: Yes the game played pretty much like trash, stuttering, crashing, the whole party of problems. In the final confrontation with Lady Arkham my game outright froze and I had to restart just as we got to the fighting!

But as a story (which I'd argue is Telltale's real strength over gameplay), I'd say that was a pretty well done thing. I'd never expected Vicky to turn out to be Lady Arkham, nor for them to violate the traditionally accepted Wayne parents legacy. They really tried to make it their own Batman and I'd argue that they succeeded. I've never really given the "Bruce Wayne" side of things much thought in a Batman game but in a Telltale series, yeah it absolutely works! There's plenty of serious discussion about how to implement lasting change. The whole arc about getting Harvey into office so he can change the city? That was great and I loved the relationship you got to build with Harvey.

That's another thing I really liked about the game: the relationships. I've pretty much been describing it to my friends as "Batman...but you're good buds with most of the villains" and that's what it comes across as sometimes. Batman can often come across as pretty ruthless, it's part of why he is so feared (hell I'd say it's a running joke that his takedowns in the Arkham games look lethal as opposed to knockout moves). Yet by making each of the villains somewhat connected to him makes you consider the more compassionate side of Batman. You know Harvey before mental illness kicks in and he becomes Two-Face. In fact I don't even think they refer to him as Two-Face at all if you play your cards right. In my story he never became the fully-deformed individual, his face was intact and yet in trailers I've seen the fully burned Two-Face that everyone knows. Seeing that made me feel like my compassion and efforts to help him out (or just my decisions in general) had actually mattered. It made me genuinely pretty concerned about his wellbeing. Though this isn't exclusive to Harvey, my Bruce/Batman made a fair show of apologising to Oz about all the monstrous things that had happened to him. If anything I felt the takedown of him was pretty harsh, I didn't feel there was any real comforting thing to say there which eh...I guess they can't get it all the time but eh. I felt the conclusion to that plotthread was pretty rushed actually. Why would Penguin attend the park personally for another Bat-trap? Why would he be alone? He's the head of Wayne Enterprises why would he risk this? Leaving episode 4, it felt like a huge handicap and yet it was resolved pretty quickly. I felt the same with the "Bruce gets put into Arkham" plotline though I figured they couldn't keep him there too long for plot reasons.

Still overall a very enjoyable experience and I look forward to more.

Here's some of the choices I made:

• Let Falcone into the parlour but was rarely kind to him. Only time I was kind to him was when I gave him Morphine and didn't brutalise him when I took him down.
• I was Harvey's best bro and had his back most of the time. I continued to fund him even when he wanted to distance himself, always tried to save him even when against Selena although....
• I did pursue a romance with Selena. What can I say? It felt right in the moment and I never really got the picture that Harvey and Selena were that serious from the one meeting at the cafe. Then again maybe I'm just making excuses for myself at this point.
• I punched Cobblepot right in his smarmy face...once. It was a real foul move he did dropping that pocketwatch, figured I'd leave him with a souvenir of his own. It was great, you get to crack jokes about the black eye he's got at the press conference the next day. That said I did respect the things he'd went through and how he'd been twisted so much. I felt the tiny flashback cutscene in episode 5 with young Bruce and Oz in the park was really quite touching. It's why I wished there was a more compassionate ending to Oz's tale because he'd really been through a lot.
• I made a deal with that fine upstanding fellah John Doe. Though in the end I didn't even take him up on his offer, choosing to stop the fight instead. Part of that was down to me thinking "The plot will probably break me out of here anyway" but sure I don't want to see anyone get brutally murdered. Plus he was genuinely helpful there. Whether I keep that promise in season 2...eh we'll see. Knowing what I know about John in other batman fiction I don't think there's really going to be any value in trying to help him the way you can try and help Harvey and Oz.
• I revealed my identity to save Alfred...kinda wished she had taken it better though.

I know there's obviously more decisions than these to be made but those are the bigger all-encompassing ones off the top of my head.

So what do you think of the whole package? What choices did you make?

Nah a game with little story I would find it hard to get behind. The stories that cone out of games can be beautiful and moving and can stay with you for years. Hell I play fighting games largely for the story.

Brace yourself for a non-ironic statement MGS4 is the finest narrative experience I have ever seen.

Its not all about gameplay, no matter how good the gameplay of MGSV is, it doesn't forgive the awful abomination of a story they failed to deliver well and in a meaningful way.

@rethla: I think it's often overlooked that Change can be bad. Changes need to be thought out and planned and constructive. Change just for the sake of it is a dangerous mix.

Also if anything considering the High Court's ruling Brexit might still be challenged and rejected at this point.