Redhotchilimist

Overcooked is a solid suggestion. I've also had success with playing through Donut County, passing the controller for each stage. It's hardly co-op, but it's simple, the levels are short, it's under two hours long and it's pretty funny.

Guardian of Light is also a good co-op game.

Finished Deadlocked today, closing the book on the PS2 Ratchet games. It's not a overwhelmingly awesome game, but I had a good time. Really good music, I think the setting enabled them to make something a bit more "cheesy" than they normally do. I love the victory theme.

Played through it on the hardest default difficulty. This was the first time they'd even let you choose one, and I beat 1-3 earlier this spring, so I just turned it up to max to see how I held up. This is still Ratchet & Clank, though. Your weapons level up and you keep gaining cash regardless of death, so even though I had a hard time especially early on, by the end it wasn't too difficult to complete.

Edit: Oh yeah, and I beat Devil May Cry 5 (on devil hunter). Absolutely phenomenal game. Zero question that it's the best game in the series as far as I'm concerned, and it's quite possibly the best brawler overall. I've spent time in Bloody Palace and I keep hitting a wall around Artemis. Probably gotta raise my own level by playing on a harder difficulty before I can make it much higher.

Bought Devil May Cry 5 a couple of days ago, and it's been fantastic. I'm not the biggest fan of DMC, it's a pretty uneven series and I couldn't really get into the games for various reasons. I'm more of a Bayonetta/Metal Gear Rising Revengeance/God Hand kinda guy when it comes to the brawlers I prefer.

But boy is this game just knocking it out of the park. It feels like a ten year old reunion party to the series in terms of all the fanservice aspects. But it's also got an entirely new kinda gameplay going on with V's puppet character shenanigans, a new system with the robot arms for Nero and a ton of new moves for Dante. I could take or leave the realistic faces, and overall the game is maybe a bit too desaturated for me, mostly consisting of demon-infested city rubble. Reminded me a lot of Nightshade of all things.

But what city rubble. It looks beautiful, with some awesome lighting and details on it. It goes a long way to making the game feel like it's taking place in a real location while still keeping the gameplay all responsive and gamey. Speaking of improvements on those older games, there's now a lot of quality of life improvements in terms of replaying secret missions and the like. Unlike the reboot, it's got a lightheartedness to its cast and characters I enjoy, and a fondness for the wacky. I especially like Nico and her loony tunes physics car. The stages now feel like proper stages - like "mission" is just a synonym for "stage" now, rather than the old games where you had this open environment and just got a mission screen whenever. They don't involve a lot of crappy platforming or dice games this time. There's been more bosses in the first 10 stages than in all of DMC4, and I've enjoyed a majority of them.

It's been a while since I had a big character action party. The new God of War kinda pissed me off, DmC was both pretty shallow and had all these characters I couldn't stand, and Bayonetta 2 is exclusive to systems I don't have. It's been a good six years since Revengeance alone, you know. Over a decade since DMC4, and almost as long since Bayonetta 1. I was starved for a good one of these. And I'm super happy that Devil May Cry 5 isn't just a solid game, but by far the one in the series I've had the most fun with. Feels like they took everything good about those games, kept it in, and polished it all until it shined. I'm still only halfway through, so I reserve the right to change my mind if I now have to replay the whole thing backwards again like in 4. But as of right now, I love it.

That's great to hear. I hope their success with this will inspire more people to greenlight and develop these sorts of games, it's been a drought.

I love me some Dragon's Dogma, but I don't think you can base an anime on that story, build it with cheap-lookin anime television series CG, and then call it a day. You're not gonna have something wortwhile. DD is essentially a beat 'em up in open world action RPG clothing, and what counts as plot for most of that game is just a cult trying to revive a buncha monsters 'cause they're evil.

I'd be happy to be proven wrong with a healthy helping of J-rock, frightening night exploration scenes and dragon fights however. At least now anime fans will also get to see how that ending goes.

@sweetz:That's frustrating, you want these things to end up being pure improvements without any caveats.

@justin258: A Crack In Time is the one I'm looking the most forward to, so I'll probably blast my way through the future games at some point - even if I end up skipping Deadlocked for the moment in the hopes of some better verison coming along. I could see Up Your Arsenal being the one I replay the most, too. That bolt multiplier they added to NG+ is a super smart addition.

@otacon: Thanks mate! You should find time for 3 some day, they're still fun.

Having beaten all the Spider-Man DLC , I'd call it alright. It's three episodes telling their own story arcs that take, I'd say, 8-10 hours depending on how much open world side activities you wanna indulge in. If you just mainline it and do nothing else, Each episode is maybe a little more than a couple of hours.

The story is pretty decent, it's got two boss fights, and a couple pretty tough new mooks. The cutscenes aren't skimped on, but you're not gonna get any Main Story stuff in here. It's a side story with some minor players going through the biggest changes.

They haven't changed up your abilities much. You don't get any new gadgets or new moves or anything like that, and the sidequests are still you going somewhere and punching some dudes, or going somewhere and picking something up. The stories for a couple of them are interesting, but nothing vital. Screwball is in charge of the challenges this time around, so I couldn't abandon them fast enough.

Personally, I think the gameplay is kinda too shallow to go back to. After I was done with Spider-Man I was very hungry for more, but after the DLCs I think they gotta do something serious to keep me interested in anything besides the story. Feel like I'm just stuck doing the same stuff over and over again.

I think how worthwhile it is depends on how you feel about some more of the same game.

I think Final Fantasy tactics Advance and Pokemon Ruby both had this problem for me. It's not even that their music is bad - It's just that I played those games for hundreds of hours, and after a while the music felt like it was drilling into my eardrums. I really can't go back. I suppose the GBA's sound chip or whatever didn't help.

Brad's the one who did the DmC review and let's played DMC1 so I'd have put my money on him.

Resident Abby's alright.