The year of the backlog - making an effort to play the games that I bought on a whim a while ago.
Due to a severe lack of time at a period of this year I perhaps was more dismissive of games that didn't thrill me constantly, and dropped them.
I can't speak highly enough of Rocket League. I have put hundreds of hours into it, and only wish to play for hundreds more.
A flawless multiplayer experience that only gets better with time.
I did not expect this...
Tried in 2009 and could not get into it, and again in 2011. I have a feeling that the main culprit is the PS3 controller itself. God damned that thing is terrible...
Anyway, the game itself. I sat down on a Sunday morning looking to test the game out again, and completed it that very same day. It isn't long (4 h 58m), but it did not need to be. Felt very much like a WW2 shooter, with some fantastic set pieces and dogged close quarter battles.
It is hard to pick fault with it, and I only wish that the game had more colour. This may itself detract from the incredible lighting engine however, and the game is so rich in atmosphere that the settings always feel appropriate.
An almost flawless first person shooter, if only the DS4 worked with it.
EDIT: Turns out it is compatible... Whoops
Work in progress
Work in progress:
Only played the online so far really and it is great. Almost the opposite of Titanfall content wise - far too much to see.
Wow... Did not expect this to be so good. I have seen people argue that it is just a visual novel, but it gave me exactly what I wanted from a Telltale game. My choices may have been of little consequence, but it all felt natural to me, so it would be harsh to critise it for that.
90 minutes each is the perfect length too. I have found myself struggling with playing the Walking Dead season 1 again due to the near 3 hour play time of them.
This starts out as a fantastic combination of Bioshock and Hitman. I couldn't wait to discover each new environment and tinker around with the options given. They all inevitably ended up with me getting caught, but it is still some of the best stealth like gameplay that I have come across so far. The powers, and their controls, all feel natural in a way that encourages their use.
The last few acts however throw away what is unique about the game, and make it a plodding, drab, slog. The switch was abrupt, and made me think that the team lost focus, or that they ran out of time. Rather than being given multiple options, you are given linear pathways and realistically just the option of shooting everyone in your path.
The story was clearly signposted hours before it happened, but I enjoyed it for what it was.
I will go back to the DLC at some point, but that last few hours really soured it for me.
Best online FPS since Call of Duty 4, but frankly it is very barebones. I imagine Titanfall 2 could really make an impact if they give players more variety of choice.
A charming game that plays perfectly to its simple strengths.
WORK IN BROGRESS
Helldivers is built around an endless grind, but it does not have enough actual content to sustain this.
The core gameplay is solid, and for the first few hours I was really excited to see what the game would bring, but each hour is almost identical. Most of the loot is almost useless too, as I am using the same powers and guns as I was at the start, they are just a bit better now due to upgrades. When none of the loot is exciting in a loot game, there is something amiss.
Had a lot of fun in my time with it, but I have no desire to go back and play it.
Feels like a PS2 open world game. The world itself is boring, and the mission structure is all over the place. The tension created by being an undercover police officer is never really capitalised upon, and none of the relationships feel earnt. Do a couple of missions and suddenly you are a Red Pole? Hmmm.
I kept playing wishing it would do something with the intial promise, but it never does. There are a few stand out moments, such as the hospital mission, and it does have a few strong core mechanics, but I feel like I spent most of my time driving to one end of the map from the other for very little reason.
Frustrating, as I feel that it could have been so much more.
The artwork is fantastic, the story is engaging, and it is scored absolutly perfectly. Everything is spot on, everything other than actually playing it. The gameplay boils down to very simple puzzles that you have solved mentally far before finishing them as they usually take far too long to actually complete. The non-puzzle gameplay is similar, with it overusing simple mechanics to make the game artificially longer.
The game has taught me a lot regarding WW1, something that I previously, and still, know shamefully little about. It was easy to connect to characters, and their simple interactions conveyed a wide range of emotions. It was one of the most visually pleasing games that I have ever seen in motion, and I doubt it will be out done any time soon. Each moment is underlined by a beautiful score...
If only it was a less frustrating game to actually play.
Also, people have been hyping the ending constantly online without actually saying what it is. Throughout I was anticipating it, and as such conjured much worse mentally, which left the end to be a bit anticlimactic.
I have been hankering for a tennis game for a long time, and chanced upon this in my vita download history.
It has plenty of flaws, but it scratched and itch and I put multiple hours into completing the board game like World Tour mode.
I wouldn't say it is a great game. Far too easy, and very limited, but for me personally it made me stop hankering for a tennis game, for a bit anyway.
I wish there was something more interesting to do in this.
I feel that a large part of the game may come from the horror aspect, and I have never understood this with Dead Space. Back in 2008 I was hugely disappointed as I was expecting a horror game and didn't get it. I don't know why this didn't click with me, as the internet is always mentioning how scary it is...
This time however, I loved the feel of the shooting. Precise aiming with the cutter to target limbs was satisfying at the start. I knew that the horror aspect didn't work for me, so I was able to look past that and find a solid shooter with a story that I wanted to discover.
Around the mid point however, it really started to wain. The game is running around flicking switches so that other people can do more meaningful actions. There are no big moments to remember, just 8-10 hours of running around corridors. The action loses its shine as more weapons come in and you can just spray everything with a machine gun. Enemies always hurdle towards you, so there is very little variety.
The story too lacks any weight. You are quickly told that you will suffer with hallucinations, so it is very clear that the fact your girlfriend is appearing on TV screens throughout is not real. This culminates in the most anti-climactic ending possible, and I am not sure what was intended.
Then we have the zero-gravity sections, which add nothing at all.
At every turn, the game looks to add length without adding variety. At no point do your actions feel more than busywork designed to reach an end goal, and the story itself doesn't reach a satisfying conclusion. The core gameplay of shooting stuff is fun up to a point, but it just needs more to it.
Frustrating. A poor horror game, and a monotonous action game.
I played this for around 5 hours, and even though I overall enjoyed my time, I have no desire at all to see how it plays out.
It is pretty much like playing an anime. The awful dialogue is made worse by the fact important cut scenes play out painfully slowly. Each clunky interchange is like nails on a chalk board.
This didn't bother me too much as the game just felt great to play. I enjoyed the simplicity of doing favours then reviving the saplings to bring light into the world, but the combination of the anime like story, the poor script, and the fact that nothing really changed at all in the gameplay gave me no desire to revisit it.
I am sure it gets better, with more variety, but I don't think I care enough to devote enough time to see this change.
I really want to like this game.
Back in 2010 i bought this game right after finishing my A-Levels. I was so excited after reading all of the reviews, but it just did not click. Those Bonne missions are something I remember strongly disliking, and the action, though satisfying intitially, just becomes a slog. That said, I still held it in a high regard, and thought I would return to it soon.
In the six years between now and then I have purchased the game, and all the DLC, for two different consoles. I really want to like this game, to see what people love about it, but I think my true second chance just came too late.
In 2016, this game graphically just does not hold up. I remember being in awe of the horse's leg muscles as they visably changed with each stride. Now I struggle to see what is a head of me as it is all a jagged mess.
And back to that slow paced nature... John Marston just seems like the most unlikeable protagonist ever. His roundabout way of saying things, of which nothing of interest is produced, is mind numbing. I get it, you are a guy who has done bad things but is trying to turn your life around, stop trying to put that morality into every single god damned sentance. And no Bonne, every single one of your missions is boring as sin. Ill give you the $15 you spent on the doctor to leave me the fuck alone.
Getting from point to point is what has driven me away mainly this time. As said, it just looks like a blurry mess (perhaps due to playing on a PS3 this time), so there is very little to enjoy.
A missed opportunity for me. I wish I tried harder in 2010, as I feel the game can now be put to bed. It was not meant to be.
