2016 Completed Games
A list of completed or dropped games from 2016.
I've been doing an MA so haven't had much time for playing games.
List items
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Vita
12 hours for first ending (Faris)
I'll come back to the game when I have time to get the true ending but I was happy with how my game ended. It had closure and it worked out alright in the end..I guess.
A really good example of a visual novel that involves it's readers at every chance. Yeah the science is dumb and yeah the characters are cliche but there are moments of sadness, of happiness, of general madness that work really well.
4.5/5
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PSP
...........
No
No
No
NO
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AND
More hours than I'd like to remember...dropped.
A gatcha card game (i.e. you get random characters when spending in game or real currency) that's mixed with a football game. It's actually pretty good, fair with its rolls and it's currency handouts. It just gets very very boring after finishing the story (yeah there's one...V/N style) and some of the card designs are ridiculous..but it's a good concept.
3.5
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PC
I'm going to say roughly 30hrs (that includes restarts, getting lost and grinding to get to the credits)
A really really good Diablo style game from the makers of Titan Quest (via Kickstarter). I played it when it was in beta and wasn't impressed but the final product is far better. The combat has enough depth to it (via skills, procs and the celestial system) that it's fun and interesting to mess around with your spec. Sure, it's easy to two button it through the standard settings - especially if you add druid to the mix (you multi-spec at level 10 but I would have liked the option not to and have extra choices in the one you stuck with) with it's projectile DOT vampire life drain that goes through enemies like they're butter (at level 2). The Cthulhu schtick is fun too, though the last boss sucked big time.
All in all fun.
4/5
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Vita
26 hours to do all routes in story mode.
The good guy doesn't always win, especially in reality.
So yeah, a really competent hack n slash Musou on the vita. Far better than DW8XL..it probably helps that the characters are far more formed. We all know and love Cao Cao (lord high troll that he is) but Nobunaga is straight up scary, Mitsunari is cold and clinical but sticks with his beliefs, Hojo is a badass mofo who does what he can to protect his family and land..etc etc. They are closer to actual people rather than anime characters (not to say that they have that much depth..just more than DW8 which isn't saying much..but still..)
As to the combat - being able to take a secondary character that moves about by themselves until you switch is a godsend given the objective based nature of the game. Unlike DW which is just about taking bases, this game gives you objectives..like kill 200 men, or kill this guy within 3 mins, or draw this person to this area before killing them, or protect this person so that you can convince them to switch sides..yes it all comes down to button mashing in the end but the variations help move things along. It also helps that the majority of the LARGE roster play differently. Sure there's some minor overlap within families but Sakon Shima doesn't play like Todo nor does he play like Naotora Ii (Naotora for life) and that makes the hacking and the slashing much more worth while. I also like the fact that you can use an item to level up reaaaaaallly quickly and thus unlock more moves, as long as can keep killing stuff with the time limit. My massive issue with the game is the weapon system. It's nigh on perfect in Orochi but here you can't transfer buffs on weapons, it's completely down to RNG and that gives you far less ability to modify your weapons. There's nothing better than having Zhou Tai in Warriors Orochi 3 go ham with a ridiculously over powered blade...it's a shame you can't do that here.
4/5
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PC
8 Hours
I have a 750ti but I managed to play through with minimal issues at 720p which is fine for me. I'm not overly obsessed about graphics as long as the game plays well..which this very much does. My only issues really were that the gameplay loop became a bit stale by the end and the bosses were just bullet sponges with poor attack patterns. They may change on higher difficulties, but I have neither time nor patience..nor disk space for that at the moment.
The music though..wow...that's...that's really something.
4/5
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X360
25 hours (end of the Taken King storyline missions - 'Regicide')
Hard to claim I've completed this - as I haven't. But I finished all the current storyline missions and that's my cue to put it up on the list.
Much better than my first go through 2? years ago..it'll be on the list from that time period but I'm too lazy to look. Taken King adds much needed storyline, tweaks to the levelling system (who thought the light system was a good idea?) and Nolan North's ghost is much better company that Dinklage's. Combat is tighter too. The Bungie patented gameplay loop has been refined to a near sheen finish and...playing as a Titan this time..smashing fools in the face never gets old. I'm going to have to get my sword to make it even better. Sadly, due to them focusing on current gen systems going forward (had to stop myself saying next gen...3 years later heh) they'll stop updating x360 Destiny. Guess I'll need to buy an xone at some point...sigh.
4.5/5
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Xbone
Time I can never get back/6 hours?
Urgh. These guys made Max Payne, what the hell happened after that? Alan Wake was boring nonsense and now this? Come on Remedy..sort your crap out.
I can understand wanting to try and deliver a tv show/game hybrid..just to try something different..but at least make it interesting. The story is terrible..terrrribbblleee. There allusions to monsters that never turn up, typical time paradox plot holes and really really really boring characters. Why is this Charlie and Fiona thing important to the plot? Why don't I have grenades when the enemies do? Why is everyone a goddamn bullet sponge? Why is there only one melee attack which uses up a special charge? Why why why why why?
2/5 because sometimes the graphics were really something else...Lance Reddick never looked shinier. Also, stop being in everything I watch/play Reddick. It's too much after Destiny and Bosch. It's too much.
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Definitive Edition
Xbone
14 hours?
Infernal Affairs (fuck you Hollywood) is in my top 5 movies of all time, so it may come as no surprise that I loved this game. The story of an undercover cop rising through the ranks of the Sun On Yee (as opposed to the real Sun Yee On..see what they did there..oh and 14k instead of 18k ((or 24k but..well)) Multiple parentheses ftw) was gripping, amusing, dark and heartwarming all at the same time. Yeah it trod the well worn steps of most undercover movies...Donnie Brasco I'm looking at you...but the setting and writing overcame that.
Gameplay wise the mildly modified Arkham combat was fun as ever and didn't get boring. Driving was mildly loose but had enough of the guys who worked on Need For Speed to make it work, gun combat was meh. Graphics were good for an open world game and evoked Hong Kong well, Voice acting was superb throughout and the inclusion of Cantonese every so often was great.
5/5 up there with Red Dead as best games of this type. Would buy sequel day one, no sequel is ever going to be made. Or they'll make a US version of it and call it the Departed.
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Xbone BC
6? hours. Not long.
I picked up MCC for $10 or so recently thinking I might try to play through the whole series at some point. I'll speak about the others when I get to them, but I thought I'd start chronologically in universe as it were with Reach.
The really good thing about the xbone is it's backwards compatibility. Sure, not many people use it but it's a godsend for those of us who were ps3/Pc users last gen. Sure I've got a 360 but I barely played any games on it till recently.
So Reach. Based upon - loosely - the rather surprisingly entertaining novel The Fall of Reach. Like The Titanic, if you know anything about Halo you know how the story ends...and it's not a great story. Team mates get very small character moments but not enough for you to care about them beyond Jorge probably.
Graphically it looks good for a 6 year old game but the lack of in game subtitles beyond the cutscenes is an almost gamebreaker for me. Massive no-no. This may be a BC issue so I'm letting it slide this time.
I found the gameplay to..well..let's put it like this. The first half up until the space section was terrible, the second half was pretty great until the very end. Weapon balance was shockingly bad. UNSC weapons barely worked and Covenant stuff chewed through everything like butter. Time to kill (TTK) was waaaay too high for me on the higher difficulty settings (and I've finished most Halo games on at least heroic, I've completed the first on legendary a couple of times) so I knocked it down to normal just to get through the boring stuff (first half). I feel that urban combat is where Halo (and Bungie as a whole) shines...which will probably give you an idea of my favourite in the series.
Don't play online so no comment on that, and it's years out of date anyway. Oh the unlock armoury system nonsense is fine I guess..nice to customise your spartan and have it turn up in gameplay but that's about it.
3/5 for the second half and allowing for BC issues - otherwise 2.5.
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Xbone - definitive edition
10 hours?
So, funny thing about this game. I played it when it originally came out on the ps3 and I didn't like it. I thought the writing was predictable, the obsession with putting Lara in the most messed up situations ridiculous, the fact she goes from first time killer to that scene in hotshots part deux with the machine gun in a couple of hours even more ridiculous and well..the less said about those death animations and QTEs the better.
Fast forward to Saturday after finishing Reach I wondered if I should give the game another shot. Luckily I did. Those things are still there - especially the I KILL EVERYONE dissonance - but my god does the game look incredible and play far better on the xbone. I mean...you can actually see her shiver and oddly that does make a difference. I actually enjoyed playing through the game this time..even the endless waves of men from nowhere (where do they get the ammo, food, men?) and the daft stuff at the end. I preferred this far more than Uncharted, but it suffers from similar problems.
To be honest I just want an Arrow game. That would be great - and this is as close as you can get to it..with the same issues in story telling that Arrow suffers from, but without the 'MY NAME IS OLIVER QUEEN/MICHAEL WESTON/BARRY ALLEN' fun.
4/5 for arrows.
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Xbone
7 hours or so.
I love Musous. It's obvious if you read these lists. I especially love anime musous. Why? Cause they have actual art styles that aren't a mess (DW) and interesting characters (SW) with different mechanics to most mainline games (DW and SW). The best anime musous are certainly the one piece games, followed by Gundam but Arslan is up there.
Set in a fantasy version of Persia (Pars) it's the usual anime story of kid fighting for the throne. The characters are okay, the storyline is typical historical battle style stuff with added fantasy elements. What Arslan does differently is three main things.
1) The Rush mechanic - drawing on Bladestorm there are sections where you can gather your men and storm through the enemy on horseback, foot or just shooting bows. It's a nice change of pace and kills tons of enemies. Just don't expect it to last long.
2) Card system. You have upgrades via dropped cards which can be set into your characters to give a variety of benefits - they also have set bonuses so it's worth collecting or synthing them to get better ones. I have yet to see this in another musou.
3) The bosses have a shield that you need to break before you can damage them, and it recharges after a while. There are environmental hazards that can help with this - but it can be a drag when you're in a hurry.
The game runs well though it looks like they didn't both with any AA which means there's jaggies everywhere. EVERYWHERE.
4/5 with a Jaggy sword
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Xbone
80 hours and £35 I'll never get back
It's a time and money sink and I want nothing more to do with it. Urgh.
Banshee is best frame.
I want my time and money back because I'm doing a PhD ffs..oh god it's all my fault/5
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Android
4? hours
Wataganashi episode
Aiya, here we are a year later on episode 2 of Higurashi. Finally got it to work with VDNS on my android tablet so that made life much easier.
It's difficult to write about these hmm books I guess, without giving too much away. There's no gameplay, you're just reading text boxes with animated backgrounds and the same music looping every so often..but it works.
This..redux of the original story tells a slightly different variation with more time given to Mion and her part in the saga. Like the original episode there are parts that just don't make sense, and that's intentional apparently..given the full cast review at the end (full on 4th wall breaking that would make Deadpool jealous)
Still among the best of its kind/5
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Xbone
Quit at about 7 hours.
It's funny. I don't have much to say about the story as I didn't see many beats - but, as with most Eidos games I think they're going for a manifest destiny kinda question..like Assassin's Creed. 'Who are we and what are we doing?'. Framing this within the 'Aug Lives Matter' thing is probably a bit too early as emotions are still running high on that..hashtag? Movement?
No, my immediate problem with the game was the combat system. Shooting felt terrible, the combat scenarios were boring and over the top and I still don't understand why they tie the melee system into the energy reserves. If you're that close you should be able to kill whoever, or knock them out.
It just didn't work for me, for multiple reasons.
3/5 attempts to knock someone out with an empty energy bar.
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Xbone
4 hours and 46 mins.
Single player only.
The first thing I thought after playing for a while was 'someone's been playing Cloudbuilt'. The movement, traversal and speed systems in this game are phenomenal. It's a speed runners delight. The fact that the missions are nice and short help with that and probably was a thought of the team while they were making it. Add the smart pistol and it's fun fun fun.
The rest of the game though...ehhhhh. They still don't quite know what to do with the mechs. Bar dashing you might as well be playing a slowly pilot that can't jump. They don't feel like mechs but the cockpit transitions are still great and remind me of Mechassault 2.
The storyline is not really any great shakes, or even there really. It's the story of Sam Witwiky and his faithful autobot Bumblebee as they fight against the evil Decepticons who hope to blow up the blah blah blah blah. They do give the mech some sort of dry humour which goes a long way to making him a fun character but that's about it.
The much vaunted 'cause and effect' level is just a riff on earlier games, and while having better control over the main 'gimmick' is fun - it's not much to write home about.
Is it better than Half Life 2? Yeah, probably. Half Life 2 sucks. Heh. Seriously though YMMV as with all things. I don't rate HL2 highly for anything but world building...something that TF2 suffers in comparison with. That said the game doesn't outstay it's welcome in the short time frame.
4/5 mechanical thumbs up.
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Some console or other
11 hours? I dunno haven't checked but that's with some DLC
A legitimately great sequel to a pretty good game. The stand out feature are the environments - even on the lesser of the consoles that I may or may not have played this on - it looks fantastic. The icy Siberian wilderness, the snow blowing across glaciers...fabulous stuff. Gameplay wise this is just an improvement on the solid foundation of the first game - with added bow ammo and the ability to craft bombs and stuff on the run. It adds up to a very fun game.
As far as the storyline - it's very typical post Uncharted nonsense..I could do without the mystical bullshit, just like in Uncharted. Lara does less whining and the VA does a pretty good job, as do nearly all of the VA actually.
There's a couple of DLC and a survival style Endurance mode that I've yet to play - but the fact that I want to says a lot about the game as a whole.
5 MY NAME IS BARRY/OLIVER/MICHAEL/LARA Crofts out of 5.
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