Games I completed in 2014
List taken from another forum. Thoughts are from as I completed the game.
Lots of stuff at the start of the year, thanks to the PS4 launch in late '13!
List items
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January - Enjoyed it overall. Got sloppy towards the end with some major framerate and loading problems, especially on Vita, and the "ending" was absolute bullshit. They clearly ran out of time and money. Good job the next version is out this year.
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January - A really nice way to spend an hour and a half or so. Lays it on a bit thick at times (I blame the schmaltzy Fulltines soundtrack on the journals) but it tells its story at the player's pace without stretching out and has a satisfying ending. I'm really not sure why people talk about it not being a game - it could only ever be a game otherwise it wouldn't work at all.
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January - Pretty good overall. I thought it was a couple of hours too long and ended too suddenly, and I'm certainly not as positive on it as I was about 2 hours before the end, but I'd certainly pick up a new one if they make it.
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[Ultimate, PS3/Vita]
January - Cleared all the story missions. 91 hours! I think that counts, even though I have Unlimited mode and a bunch of stuff to go for platinum. I've seen the ending credits 4 times in different parts of the story mode so that should be enough. Probably not the best Musou game to play, but certainly the one which encouraged you to break it as much as possible.
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January - Unironically, lovely stuff. Not massively long, but certainly enough there for 20 quid and just something you have to play through yourself. It really builds a bond with the player without passing it through a character or other cypher and uses touch wonderfully. If you have a Vita, this is pretty much essential.
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February - By far the weakest COD campaign yet. The most positive thing I can think to say about it is that I can now free up the space in case I need it when the Japanese PS4 launch happens on the 22nd.
And now... EMINEM! Nearly as embarrassing as that terrible Linkin Park track on the menus in Gundam Extreme Versus.
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February - Main scenario clear - it took over 30 hours so I think it counts! Loads of DLC stuff left for me to do, though. Really good commute game thanks to the short maps and number of things you can do (item world, character world, revisiting stuff for grinding, assembly stuff...). Enjoyed the story bits because the voice cast sounded like they were just having so much fun.
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February - Not bad. Some annoying areas and even some forced stealth. Got through it, though. Graphically all over the place - it looks amazing one minute and a herky-jerky mess the next. The 30fps cap option helps a lot. The best thing about the game was the sound, I think. Some great future guns and I enjoyed the soundtrack.
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February - Official mode clear - again, this counts because it's the mode which actually has proper cutscenes, voices and the like. For someone who isn't familiar with the Gundam series, it's a surprisingly good introduction to the story, though the later stories are a bit convoluted. The game itself is a lot of fun, though it lacks challenge because the charged shot is far too powerful. I liked the Gundam 3 system of small energy bars and Extreme Versus-style "forces remaining" gauges, keeping you on your toes. The music this time around is pretty bad too: not because the music itself is bad (it's mostly classic Gundam themes) but because they're weak arrangements. That said, there's a finite amount of TM Revolution I can take per day...
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February - My first Lego game. Good fun, but the combat really wore thin after a while.
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March - Really great stuff. Even as a PS3 port, I would be happy if all PS4 games looked and ran like this.
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March - Good port. Shame about the audio quality on the Vita version but the touch-based heal menu makes up for it. I had to give up on the idea of getting most of the ultimate weapons powered up when I remembered what exactly I had to do for them!
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April - All songs clear - much more difficult than the previous version, with more varied music too. I'm not a fan of the increased emphasis on accuracy on touchscreen swipes though. The end credits are amazing. I'd buy a downloadable game built from that mini-game.
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April - Lots of fun. I really liked Act 5 and the final boss was a stiff challenge. Lots of precise dodging required - I think it would have been better on controller. Adventure mode is really good, concentrated fighting with lots of rewards, and I love the way it unlocks for all characters so you don't have to play the story again once you've cleared it once. It's a bold statement on how confident they are on how the game plays once you get the presentation, too.
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April - 3 of 9 endings - 37 hours to run through. Thoroughly enjoyed it. A few too many cutscenes though. I'll probably end up running through it again... or maybe I'll buy Escha and Logy when it comes out on budget next month... or perhaps even get the UK version on disc.
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May - Not bad at all. Probably the best Symphonia-style battle system I've seen in a Tales game, although the dungeons didn't quite ramp up quickly enough in terms of complexity. Interesting idea behind the story, though again it probably wasn't used as well as it could have been. The soundtrack was a horrible cacophony at the start but moved up to "tolerable" by the end. Thinking now about what to do about Hearts R - buy now or wait for a budget version.
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May - Finished juuuust before it wore out its welcome. Felt a bit scrappy and unfinished, with too many damage sponge enemies to extend fights. I liked the music a lot - I've never been to Seattle but the game has a good sense of place, with the soundtrack being a major part of it. I might go back to polish off the districts but I really don't feel like redoing the entire game again for the other choices.
I also finished Atelier Ayesha with all the endings. Well worth the second run through, but there's not enough of a difficulty curve in the post-game content.I'd probably need to spend a long time redoing all my items if I wanted to beat the final tier of enemies, and that combined with what I gather is an actively hostile Hard difficulty (instead of giving the enemy lots of hitpoints - they only get about 20% more - they get a lot faster and you act much more slowly) I gave up on the platinum.
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May - The best FPS I've played in aaaaages. Unmistakeable heritage from Starbreeze, some extremely satisfying shooting and (when it isn't being let down by id Tech 5) cool presentation. Took about 13 hours in the end - Death Incarnate is probably the best difficulty for a first play unless you're really lacking confidence in your shooting abilities.
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June - Finally got into this after being really disappointed by Watch Dogs. Definitely the superior dog-based open-world game! Finished just as the combat was starting to wear thin, too. The missions have that classic "I have to play the next one" structure - short enough to play on a whim, long enough for stuff to actually happen. Looking forward to the sequel now.
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July - Great racing game. Really looking forward to the next one.
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July - Clearly flawed, but flawed in entirely fixable ways. Nowhere near as hard as certain people say. Further proof that shooting works on Vita - and combined with meaty melee as well. Looking forward to what's next.
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August - Main story clear - bloody hell, it's been a while since I finished a game! Anyway, this is great. 25 hours for the main story with a surprisingly high percentage of that being proper action. The best Monster Hunter-type game I've played yet, and the audio is amazing. The hundred crack fist when you're using the gauntlets is right up there with the best attacks in an action game ever.
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August - Took about 57 hours in all, not including the bits where I was reloading trying to get items. This isn't far off how long it took me to get through Ayesha twice, and I think it's a bit too long overall. A few too many bits where you're passing time waiting for the next areas/items/etc to unlock. I'll be buying Shallie (no time limits!) when I head to Japan in October, so I might consider going through with Logy as nearly 700,000 Cole and some endgame-level weaponry complete with rare properties should help speed things up a bit.
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[PS3 HD version]
August - Finished this on Easy as I'd never gone all the way through before. Even though I knew about the general flow of the story, it's still pretty crazy. Really appreciated the smoothness of the HD port, too.
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[PS3 HD version]
August - Turns out I was only like 3 missions from the end of this too, and was advised I should finish it for the sake of MGS5. So I did. It's very much a PSP game in scale, but not in ambition. Weird seeing a Vocaloid logo in a game that doesn't have "Hatsune Miku" as part of the title.
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September - Pretty good. I liked the shooting a lot but everything around is hard to be too enthusiastic about, particularly the worst ending this side of Rage.
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September - The most fun I've had with a Musou game yet. It's completely solved the problems with 3, and introduced the speedy tag mode from the 3DS game. Looking forward to Hyrule Warriors this week!
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October - The first Wii U game I've put a lot of time into, which led to a weekend full of Zelda and Metroid last week. The Pro controller breathed life back into the system for me as I really don't like the big unwieldy GamePad. I'll be back for the adventure mode as it's a lot of fun getting items and meeting objectives. It's the toughest challenge in a Musou this side of Samurai Warriors 3 - luckily it doesn't have the suicidal escorts that game did.
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Stptember - for a game where I've cleared the main mode my completion percentage is really low. I will be back on this as the driving is just so much fun. I can't see how I can enjoy Driveclub more than this - but I would love to be surprised. The best racing game I've played since PGR4.
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November - The best COD single player campaign since Black Ops. Hits all kinds of action movie notes, controls well all the way through, has some great first person cutscenes and surprisingly tastefully done QTEs, and has some great weapons. Very impressed by CyberSpacey too.
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December - Finished this off - turned out I was closer to the end than I thought. It ends a bit abruptly - it's pretty clear that it's a remake of two games in a trilogy. The last couple of dungeons got quite fun, as the gimmick count (and deadly trap number) increased.
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December - First Onechanbara game. Not brilliant - defending is annoying and too many enemies don't react to most of your moves. There's a character who uses a chainsaw, though, and in typical Japanese action game fashion each swipe does 20 hits, going DRRRRRRR as it cuts through.
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December - This was much better! Seemed a lot easier than the original - not that that's a bad thing on default difficulty. Definitely seemed to get sick of the bits between fights as the game goes on. Lots of fun, completely silly and somehow keeps raising the stakes all the way through. Makes all other games in its genre look worse by comparison (except Revengeance, which gets through by being just as silly).
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December - 2 of 5 endings - the third Atelier game I've finished this year! A satisfying ending to the trilogy. Not too sure about the requirement to complete the game twice to get the true ending (the same was true in Escha and Logy and I'm waiting for the Vita version to do that, I guess) but the endings you get are still good. I'm looking forward to seeing what Gust does next - hopefully something with a PS4 version.
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