Rate The Last Game You Finished

Yep, totally stole this idea from the 'Rate The Last Movie You Saw'. That out of the way, how would you rate the last game you finished?

I'll start. I just finished Metsl Gear Solid 2. I'll give it a 3/5. The gameplay is much improved over the original, it still looks great, the VO is really well done (even Raiden), the cutscenes are well shot and there are really cool moments. And the main theme is great (and incredibly under-used).

But, as improved as the controls were I still didn't feel like I had a lot of control over the movement. Raiden has so little momentum when he moves. His movement curve is an immediate ramp up. Subtly was just not there. Then how it all ends. I'll stay away from spoilers. But Jesus Christ. I like MGS 4's brand of nuts. That game was over the top in a bombastic sort of way. MGS 2 is just absurd because of the characterizations, story contrivances, and the juvenile philosophy nonsense. Then it just falls so flat. It felt like there should be a third act but there's nothing. And Raiden feels like the sidekick, filling in a supportive role running parallel to a much more interesting story. When I was done, I didn't feel anything at all. It all just sort of happened. Maybe my expectations were too high.

'Dead Space'

Holds up really well. It's still a solid, straight forward and engaging action horror game. Smart mechanic and environmental design keeps the action moving, smart action scenarios keep you thinking on your feet and light puzzles are peppered in to keep you feeling like more than a killing machine.

What's really remarkable is how strong the art design is. A game taking place entirely on a nuts and bolts mining ship could so easily suffer from a grinding fatigue brought on by relentlessly claustrophobic spaces and samey environmental design. But they do an incredible job of adapting their art to different parts of the ship, having each area feel distinct and keeping larger open spaces a priority for player relief. This is of course not even mentioning how unique and ghoulish the design of the 'necromorphs' remains to this day. Their twisted, ungainly formerly human forms are bizarre, fascinating and truly memorable. I hadn't made the so direct a connection their design is to that of John Carpenters' film 'The Thing.' Really cool, horrible stuff.

It's tense, fun, nerve racking and written well enough to get by without insulting the players intelligence. Really, really solid game. 9/10

I just finished Sunset Overdrive and I love everything about that game except how poorly it teaches you some of the traversal mechanics. I'm a very visual person, and I play games largely for their visual appeal so this game is a real treat for me on top of playing incredibly well. I don't rate games in my head, but I guess this means 5/5.

Alan Wake - 9/10

A great suspenseful game, that has great graphics, gameplay, characters, but loses a bit of appeal towards the end, due to repetition and a weaker third act. But an amazing and unique experience regardless.

I'm sure I'm not the only one here but I just finished Frogwares' The Testament of Sherlock Holmes! I'd give it a good middle of the road 3 outta 5 if I had to put a number on it--the story was interesting and a lot of the mechanics were neat but, like essentially every adventure game, most of the puzzles were stupidly obtuse.

That being said, I'm moving onto the next Sherlock game with gusto. Alex and Vinny made it actually look super neat.

Bayonetta- 7/10

I know games shouldn't be compared when reviewing, but it probably would have been better if I hadn't played Bayonetta 2 right before.

Shadow of Mordor, after doing 100% I'd give it a 4/5 probably.

Crysis 2 - 6/10

It's purty (played on 360) and the gameplay is solid I guess. But man, this is definitely a game that's too long for its own good. Seriously, I know people give first person shooters a lot of shit because 4-7 hours seems too short, but I'd much rather have a more compact but short fps than a 12 hour one full of boring useless fluff.

The multiplayer was pretty fun though. The ghosts of Free Radical still had it.

Gave DA2 another shot to either:

a. pump me up for DA:I next week and convince me to buy it while also changing my opinion on the game and force me to see that I was harsh on the game when it first came out.

OR b. kill all desire to play anymore Dragon Age and prove to me that I was right about the game when I first played it.

Result: Both really. I'm actually excited for DA:I (god dammit I told myself to not fall into this trap a third time) but nonetheless I attribute that most to the Dragon Age Keep which just reminded me how much I remember and love Origins, and how little I remember about 2 (hence why I wanted to replay it). And the result? DA2 is an extremely mediocre game with some real bright spots but ultimately fails in a lot of ways. Some of the quests are really really good but those are usually the side quests, but a lot of the game feels like artificial and is just there to increase the length of the game. Its crazy how what is supposed to be the first 1/3 of the game is easily half of the entire game (if not more) and a lot of it is generic fetch quests or uninterested main quest shit sadly.

The repeating areas...is still the fucking worst part of the game. If they used the same areas, fine, whatever it is lazy. But the fact that they didn't change the map in anyway to at least filter you through where you need to go is the fucking worst, ugh that is the worst part. Its also crazy that they use the same dungeon layout in different areas of the world, it blows my mind how that was thought to be ok (or even worst that they thought people wouldn't notice immediately once an area showed up for a third and fourth and fifth and...time).

Also the companions aren't nearly as interesting as Origins and you don't have enough interactions with them as Origins (I could be wrong and over estimating the interactions with Origins but I remember spending a ton of time in camp with my team and talk with the individuals, it was one of my favorite parts of Origins). How your team interacts with what you are doing on missions is pretty great, some of the one liners are awful (Isabella offers nothing interesting in conversations compared to other party members and that is a bummer). But when you have the right member in your party for your current situation and they say something meaningful (I'm a wizard...and that looks FUCKED up) it is a pretty great moment, almost makes me wish they gave a hint at who you should take with you to make the conversations more meaningful.

Spoilers: It also sucks that they take away 1 of your 2 healers no matter what you do (if you are a male and not a mage). This essentially locks you into Anders who is easily my least favorite character in the series for me. I will say that he does add the most dialogue to the conversations that is really interesting but as a character he is quite awful and hate how for half the game he is essentially a requirement to have in my party. And just how they contrive getting rid of Bethany is stupid, if you don't have Anders with you in the deep roads, she dies. If he is there she lives BUT becomes a Grey Warden and leaves the party (....why? I just know this happens but I doubt they offer a good reason to this). And if you don't take her on the expedition she is taken into the Circle. Again forcing you to use Anders instead of giving you an option, at least give Merrill the option to learn healing spells.

Some things really irk me about the game still and a lot of memories came rushing back to me. The combat didn't bum me out as much as it did the first time (they make it easier with updates?), again some story beats are pretty good, the serial killer stuff is great and probably one of my favorite parts of the game, but it is probably the most obvious example of a rushed game (even more so than ME3). In some ways I love the art direction and in others I don't like the changes they made (why did they make the Qunari have horns all the sudden? I liked that Sten was essentially a really big dude who was foreign and that was all that distinguished him from humans). And goddamn the ending is still rough, no reason at all to fight one of the two bosses depending on who you side with. All in all I was hoping the return visit would lay those things that bothered me to rest but it didn't. In my mind it is still a good to mediocre game that shouldn't have had the dragon age name on it (or at least the number 2).

3/5

I'll give you two, since I finished them in relatively quick succession:

Lords of the Fallen: A bad Dark Souls clone. It has some interesting ideas, like the XP multiplier for consecutive kills, but that's ultimately nowhere near enough to overcome uninspired enemy and world design, tedious combat with bullet sponge enemies, poor translation, choppy graphics, easy bosses, and numerous technical issues (I lost progress at least four times due to crashes). The big problem is that the game very much wants to be put alongside Dark Souls, but all it gets you to think about it how much better Dark Souls is.

Score: 2/5

Sherlock Holmes - Crimes and Punishments: A solid adventure game. It isn't long or particularly difficult, but I found it really enjoyable in small chunks. There is a certain thrill that comes with solving crimes and feeling clever. It's a nice touch that you can skip some of the mini-games if you find them tedious. On the down side, the quality of individual cases can be really uneven (a couple of them are way too small and obvious), and it does run into the common adventure game problems of needing to be in the exact right place to activate some objects and a lot of backtracking.

That said, I thought most of the cases had logical conclusions to them that didn't require a ton of obtuse reasoning to figure out. The only exception was the case from the QL, where, although having identified the correct culprit, I didn't feel like there was anything to make the "correct" conclusion more likely than any other conclusion.

Overall, I really enjoyed it. Much more than I though I would. I sort of wish it had been longer than just six cases, as that didn't feel like very much, but I'd be willing to buy another entry in the series for something less than sixty bucks if given the opportunity.

Score: 4/5

My original conclusion in the case was that Mr. Robinson was in league with the Mexicans. He was worried that the Chileans would find out about his double-dealing regarding the multiple exclusive purchase contracts for his invention and he needed a way to get rid of them. Enter the Mexicans, who were upset about the Chileans underhanded tactics in buying the WEA mine out from under them. Together, they concocted the following plan:

1. The Mexicans get everyone, except for the Chileans, off the train at the first stop.
2. The Mexicans murder the Chileans and divert the train to the mine between the first and second stations. They detach the locomotive and secure car with Mr. Robinson's invention first and send those on. They then seal the train with the Chilean's bodies in the mine using the dynamite - poetic justice for the mine dispute.
3. They know that each station must report the train as it goes past. The ply the drunken station master at the second stop with strong drink. With him in a stupor, they send a telegram back to the first stop saying the train passed the station. However, they did not know morse code or English very well, which is why the message sent to the first station was garbled and mostly in Spanish.
4. At the third station, they take the secure car and place it on a barge owned by one of their subsidiary companies, where it is carried to the other side of the lake, hence the Las Zapas badge found at the beach. The locomotive car is sunk. They bribe the station master by offering to pay off his gambling debts. He sends the message that the train has passed the station.
5. The use the cobbled together hand-car to mock up the "disappearing train."
6. The Mexicans take Mr. Robinson's invention as payment, and Mr. Robinson collects on his insurance policy for the device.

Killzone Shadow Fall - I tried really really really hard to like this game. I loved KZ2. Sure there were complaints about the color pallet being mostly grey and the heaviness of movement but to me those things gave an identity to KZ2. KZ3 was just an okay experience for me. I'd put Killzone Shadow Fall between KZ2 and KZ3. I think they really nailed the shooting mechanics in Shadow Fall. Gunplay felt good and weapons sound appropriately punchy. My issue was the story. It failed to hook me in, I did not feel a sense of immersion in the game at all. It just felt like almost like a slog all the way through. And the ending was extremely weak. Can't really say much about multiplayer since I only play Offline Botzone, with limited amount of play time.

3.5/5

Infamous Second Son - This game felt inferior compared to Infamous 2. In Infamous 2, I feel like there were more options when it came to the power progression. In Second Son, while I very much appreciate how Sucker Punch have incorporated 4 different powers into the game, I felt that came with the price of how much they could flesh out the different powers. Sure these powers are varied from each other in terms of how it forced the player to re-think the way they approach the game, but it didn't feel different enough. On my first playthrough, I worked to become a Paragon and at the time, I didn't really feel the game. Now I'm on my 2nd playthrough to be Infamous, and I could certainly feel how different the game is, seeing as now I'm free to do whatever I want, which is basically destroy everything. Playing as an Evil Delsin feels liberating, and made the game that much better for me.

4/5

If we're going by the five point scale, the Walking Dead Season Two (or, combined with Season One, as I had played the just before), I'd give a five out of five. I've been playing quite a few games ever since Alien Isolation has come out (which I'd also rate five out of five), but I am only mentioning the last game I played.

Persona 3 Fes

4/5

Far Cry 3. It was pretty good, but ran a bit long. They also used up their most interesting environments early on and the latter half of the game is spent on the inferior southern island also Vaas - the most/only interesting character in the game - is dead. Some solid first-person shooter gameplay, interesting skills, useful crafting and cool guns go a long way to making it fun. The side missions - mostly liberating outposts and climbing radio towers - are definite highlights. I almost wish they'd let you re-liberate the outposts. They're the best part of the game because you have so many combat options - stealth, machine guns blazing, heavy weapons blowing stuff into tiny bits, nature... I was sneaking up on an outpost once getting ready to murder fools, and two freaking tigers came out of nowhere, killed everyone and stalked off into the jungle. I got credit for undetected liberation of the outpost. It was amazing. The story started out promising, but went nowhere and the ending just sucked. In fact, both endings sucked. The boss fights amounted to a couple of disappointingly lame QTE knife fights.

I give it 4 crocodile attacks out of 5.

Afterwards, I started Dragon's Dogma and like it a lot, but then the chance to play some PSO presented itself and now I can't stop the grind. Mag's gotta eat.

Icewind Dale Enhanced Edition

3/5

999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (Nintendo DS)

4/5

It's a really fantastic visual novel, one of the best I've played in a long time, and the room escape puzzles are all really clever and challenging. The way the story unfolds in the true ending is kind of mind blowing, especially in the way it incorporates the branching choices structure common in visual novels. The game also makes really novel use of the DS touch screen for both narrative and gameplay reasons, which I always appreciate.

To get all of the game's endings, you have to play through it multiple times, and you can't get the 'true' ending the first time around. Thankfully, starting a new game on an existing save file lets you skip all the dialogue you've already read, which helps immensely. Unfortunately, it doesn't let you skip the 'escape' sections, which results in you having to mindlessly repeat puzzles you already know the solution to. Also the way to get to the 'true' ending is somewhat obscure and counterintuitive, I had to look it up.

But apart from those issues, it plays great and the story is extremely memorable with some great characters. Used copies are pretty cheap, so I'd recommend anyone with a DS and an interest in great visual novels / adventure games to pick it up.

Fantasy Life

A great amount of things to do, but most of them are repetitive and tedious after a while. The story is simple but interesting and has some great dialogue--if not too damn much of it. For completionists who like big lists of tasks to complete, it's a dream come true. A fun artstyle with some adorable character designs. Decent but repetitive music.

3/5

I haven't finished the game yet, nor do I know if I ever will because I completely agree with this.

I guess Destiny is the last game I finished. 4/5. I wrote a review about it.

Forza Horizon 2. It was more Forza Horizon, which I like. Not really much to nitpick on it. So I'd give it a solid 7 out of 7. Or maybe an 8 out of 8. Yeah, that sounds good.

I hope to get through COD: Advanced Warfare and Sunset Overdrive in the next few weeks before Thanksgiving. If I'm particularly cunning, I may finish Hyrule Warriors as wel. So long as Madden so beckon me...

I haven't finished all the endings, but Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is most definitely a 5/5.

I can't remember what the latest game I finished was. Huh, weird. It might have been Drakengard 3 I think.

That game is terrible in almost every way imaginable. I only kind of like the character design, and the general loop of mashing out enemies like dynasty warriors to unlock new weapons was enjoyable enough for what it was. In lieu of better games, I didn't have the worst time. But I would hardly recommend the game to anyone.

2/5

Bayonetta 2 - 5/5

One of the best games to come out this year. Totally worth getting a Wii U for, unless you hate fun that is.

Sunset Overdrive

5/5

Purchased an X-Box One this last friday mainly to play D4, but my interest in checking out Sunset Overdrive as well was what made the math work as far as the money investment. Booted up S.O. while I was waiting on D4 to download, and was hooked, did nothing but play it all weekend and finished it off Sunday night. Totally surprise how much it clicked with me, so much so that I never got around to starting D4 (plan to after work today).

Jazzpunk -- 2/5

I sort of laughed once at the Wedding Qake bit, and certain sections had very strong art design. Otherwise the humor was a total miss for me. I found the experience to be really depressing.

I finish Dark Souls 2 a lot, and recently BoI: Rebirth. Both are 5/5 in my awesome book.

Yesterday I finished Vice City and Sleeping Dogs. Both are 5/5 for me but man, switching from one to the other was very confusing to my brain. None of the controls are the same except for movement on the left stick and enter vehicles on triangle. Then entering vehicles on the other side and driving on the other side were fucking me up too.

Lords of the Fallen: 8/10

Shadows of Mordor 9/10.

Diablo 3+Reaper of Souls

Fun/5

Overall, it was a pretty Diablo experience. Even though I found it really predictable I particularly liked the part where I killed a dude and he dropped good and/or bad items and then I equipped those items or sold them. I played enough to be able to handle Torment 6 but at that point got kinda burnt out. All in all I give it a Diablo out of 26.

This thread made me think "Wow, I haven't finished a game in an extremely long time.". I guess Dota does that...

Advance Warfare (single player campaign) - Haven't enjoyed a COD since MW2, much less a campaign from COD since MW1, but the pacing and momentum of the gameplay and plot make this one incredibly enjoyable. It's big, it's dumb, it's not at all clever but it's big and dumb in a way that isn't exhausting but rather in way that endues the sort of grin one would typically have whilst eating Peanut Butter out of the jar with a spoon. 8/10

Civilization V: Gods & Kings

it's a Civ game so as expected

5/5

Bayonetta 1, on Wii U. I played through Bayonetta 2 several times then immediately jumped into the original and most of the time I felt myself wishing it was the sequel. Game felt like it dragged with pacing issues, there were bullshit QTE's, a lot more gimmicky annoying stages. My double swords/whip combo from Bayo 2 wasn't in the original and nothing I tried felt as good. If I hadn't played Bayo 2 right before that I'm sure I would've had a blast with Bayo 1 as well but put side to side the sequel plays better in almost every way.

The game is still great, I'd give it a 4/5 no matter what, but it definitely seems inferior when directly compared to its sequel.

Shadow of Mordor - played it on the PS4. 9/10. One of the best games I've played in last couple years. They ripped off a bunch of games, but they ripped them off well. Gets bonus points for turning into a solid "podcast game" once main story was over and I focused on getting the Platinum. Getting all the trophies is not too challenging, but still felt rewarding - thought they found a nice balance.

Before that Destiny 7/10. I finished main story and progressed in Endgame to level 28 - but never raided. Enjoyed it but I was also disappointed by it - I was so onboard the hype train! May be unfair to hold a games hype as a factor in judging it, but I don't do this kind of crap professionally so who cares :)

Mgs2 Sons of Liberty - 4/5

I really liked everything about the game. From the characters, to the gameplay it was all so much fun. Music was even great I'd say. I guess I really only deduct a point because of the ending. I didn't hate it, but it was such a clusterfuck of exposition. There were so many revelations stacked on each other it kind of just fell apart for me. Again, I don't hate what it was trying to do. I just don't think it was well done.

Alien Isolation - 4/5.

A really solid game that is well optimized to boot. The attention to detail sometimes goes too far in the fan service way, but it's hard to fault it for that. Sega have redeemed themselves from the Colonial Marines fiasco. Sometimes it feels like the Alien is constantly stalking you, other times it seems really dumb (like walking around a table without it noticing you), but both are limitations of trying to make a playable, enjoyable game out of this.

We had Alien 2.5 and now 1.5, next I hope they make Alien 3.5 with the Alien 3 aesthetic.

@calmgamer: Mordor definitely seems like the AC2 platinum (except for the feathers) in that's it is fun to get and virtually everyone has it; which is fine for the type of game Mordor is.

Forgot to give Mordor the old 9/10 seal of approval, it's no Dark Souls II but pretty handily the best game on the new consoles not counting Black Flag or the Last of Us.

Depending on what you consider finished, but I'll go through the one I've done all the core unlocks/etc that show the main game:

Bayonetta 2: 5/5. Fantastic game, exactly what I wanted in a cleaned up, better controlling sequal without random BS killing QTEs etc

Yup!

Shin megami tensei 4.

Gameplaywise probably the sharpest the series has ever been. Characterdesign and most of the new demon-designs were kinda meh. Kaneko, come back to the illustrators-chair, please! Story was pretty interesting, music was awesome. Not the greatest SMT overall but pretty awesome in it's own way.

8/10

D4

Super sad to know we may not be getting the rest of the story. Weird and awesome game

Legend of Grimrock 2.

5/5. It has been years since a new game made me think about it while I wasn't actually in the process of playing it, both because I liked it so much and because the puzzles really tripped me up sometimes. Just absolutely loved this game.

Just got Golden God in Binding of Isaac. Still 5/5 :P

Vanishing of Ethan Carter - 9.739/10

If you have a med/high end PC, and you like atmosphere in games, you gotta play it. It's short (3.5-4.5hrs) so it's easy to finish. :P

MGSV- Ground Zeroes

Knocked out this right after finishing IV for the first time...may not have been the best way to go about it. Felt super underwhelming, short, and the ending was...odd.

The song at the end was sick though.

3/5- Would trade in again.

Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor

9/10

Amazing gameplay (especially combat), fun combo system, visceral finishers, awesome voice acting, intriguing Nemesis System, and great visuals all taking place in a setting I know and enjoy.

The story, the writing, and especially the last couple of boss encounters could have benefited from some more polish. These held it back from a perfect score from me.

Bottom line: I thoroughly enjoyed this game, it is just plain fun. I did not get bored of it for one second from start to platinum.

Fuck that! I don't play anything below a 9.4.

Erm, but seriously, it's definitely something I want to check out, not sure if I'll get around to it this year though :|

Metal Gear Rising Revengeance

The action is so over-the-top and insanely ridiculous and I never expected anything less from Platinum. Surprisingly, the action provides a nice contrast to all the philosophical undertones and self-seriousness of the story. 4/5

...I don't even remember when I last finished a game. Man this is depressing.

Edit: WAIT. I just remembered that I played through Gone Home again a couple weeks ago. 4/5.