Topic: Games you've recently beat

@nessisonett well, i'd say theres a high chance that it could be worth more of your time than armageddon. of course its up to you though, i just wanted to let you know that there was another mk game before armageddon.

Just finished Chorus on Series X after about 15 hours of playtime. Absolutely brilliant game! Not only was it fun to play a pure spaceship shooter, of which there aren't that many, it also told a fantastic story with an epic ending. The battles were awesome and the lore was engrossing. Great cast of characters as well, including the two protagonists.

It's always great to discover a new IP that's unique. It baffles me why there aren't more spaceship shooters as it's just so much fun flying around and shooting ships. I highly recommend playing this game if you want something different and it's also really cheap to find. I see physical copies going for around €10. For that price, it's an absolute steal.

Also finished Picross S Mega Drive & Master System Edition on Switch after 60 hours of playtime. I think I started this game two years ago and I've been playing it on and off since then. Probably won't buy a new Picross game soon as I still have Murder By Numbers left to play and if I'm in the mood for some Picross again, I can start that one up instead.

Anyway, this is my favourite Picross so far due to the Sega theme rather than the generic pictures in the regular games. Hopefully they put out more games like this one. I'd love one with a Nintendo theme.

Beat Ghost of Tsushima. Very very good ending. A lot is done right but there are a few sticking points for it to be a true classic for me. The horse is just a slight bit too slow to make traversing the game world ‘fun’, which I get as it’s a horse but the game frequently dips into being a little bit of a chore. The side quests I’d say are better than the majority of the main story too, each of the main sidequest lines are fantastic, dealing with different elements of the Mongol invasion.

I will say however, I just don’t think they handled the moral dilemmas of the game very well. I remember one bit in Yuna’s story which I assumed would delve into how the Japanese who don’t oppose the Mongols are essentially just survivors, which I thought would be an interesting juxtaposition to the Ghost’s stance. Nope, they’re a bunch of slavers who r**** Taka and Yuna repeatedly as children. Like talk about overkill for a very sensitive subject that is never mentioned again other than for Yuna at the end of the quest to be like nice job, I will never mention this horrible ordeal again as you’ve solved it by killing the dude.

Another issue is the central conflict. The one between Jin and Shimura. It’s that classic thing of the ends justifying the means and so forth, and war crimes being excusable because they’re baddies and it’s ok to completely disregard war crimes because they deserve it. Now, this game was developed a couple years back and they probably didn’t foresee a certain news story, but the very notion of having the guy saying ‘killing baddies using a horrific method of mass poison THAT IS THEN USED ON CIVILIANS IN TURN’ is the controversial one? It’s not like bushido is completely flawless but portraying dignity and respect as outdated nonsense is a bit much, they often just show Shimura to be an unbending old fool. It’s not like we couldn’t have seen his thoughts as more news of Jin’s deeds came to light, you see loads of cutscenes of him and the Khan in Act 1. It’s a blemish on an otherwise very good game, and I do probably think it’s just the fact Westerners made it. Like George W Bush making a game about Gilgamesh, it’s a strange mix of viewing a very different period of time rooted in a specific lifestyle through the lens of somebody whose favourite movie is American Sniper.

At least it’s very pretty. And the combat is good, if just lacking a little bit of oomph, whether that’s punchier haptics or a smidge more gore just to bump up the tension. I’ll definitely push on to play Iki Island, I’ve enjoyed the base game and I’m going for the platinum too.

@nessisonett Some really interesting thoughts there! I can see where you’re coming from regarding the central conflict, though I personally never felt that the game painted the way of the ghost as the morally high ground. Ultimately, I think the developers cleverly weaved and bobbed around a whole lot of heavy subject matter, effectively utilizing narrative cliche to successfully hone in on Jin’s personal plight in order to tell a simple yet compelling coming of age story. Glad you enjoyed your time with it. I’m curious to see how they approach the upcoming film adaptation.

@Jimmer-jammer I’m not convinced that a movie would be anything special, the central plot is built on cliche which is why the artstyle was talked about more than the story. The sidequests were the more interesting part narratively and they’d be the obvious sections to cut from a movie. Without seeing Jin’s journey around the island and helping people wherever he can, seeing the devastation that the Mongols inflict, there’s even less justification for him going off the deep end and being a bit genocidey, a 2 hour movie would inevitably make him look sociopathic. An 8 episode series would maybe work, a movie is suicidal.

@nessisonett I think anything can be successfully pulled off with the right approach. Will this work? I don’t know. Likely not on the same level as the game but at this stage I remain (possibly naively) hopeful.

@LtSarge I loved life is strange the time shifting mechanics and the quaint setting was endearing . before the storm more time with those characters was great. now life is strange 2 while it was ok the younger brother was beyond annoying. I really liked life is strange true colours. its just a shame its looks like theres no more life is strange games on the horizon. I liked tell me why which was a similar game by dontnod and im looking forward to playing Lost records: bloom and rage the up coming game from dontnod

Darkness 2 loved this game shame we never got a sequel

Armored Core: Master of Arena is down and with it, the whole of gen 1 Armored Core. Decent game but probably my least favourite of the three. It’s a shame to say goodbye to my AC though, it served me well across the three PS1 games!

Just finished Control: Ultimate Edition on PS5. Absolutely brilliant game! I think after playing it, Remedy has became a favourite developer of mine. Alan Wake, Quantum Break, Control, they're all top-notch games. Remedy's not afraid of actually making fun games that don't take themselves too seriously, especially Control. It just feels like so many developers would rather take a more realistic approach instead of creating a product that's first and foremost a fun experience. While I still like those games, I vastly prefer experiences like Control. It reminded me a lot of Metal Gear Solid because you could clearly tell that the developers had a good time creating these games. I mean, just look at last year's The Game Awards when Remedy had that Alan Wake II musical performance. What an awesome developer!

Worth mentioning is that I've also done the AWE DLC, which was superb, and I'm going to be doing The Foundation DLC before putting away this game.

@LtSarge Glad to see that you love Control as much as I did. Definitely one of my favorite games of last gen, and I look forward to finally playing the PS5 version someday. I purposely left the DLC for whenever that happens, so that should be an extra treat.

@LtSarge I share your sentiments on Control: Ultimate Edition, excellent game! I also enjoyed the AWE DLC, but I really struggled with The Foundation. I found it lifeless, dull and, worse, frustrating. If I hadn't turned on the "cheat" that becomes available after completing the main game, I don't think I would have completed it (and my controller would probably be embedded in my living room wall for all eternity).
It had some good moments, though. Hope you have a better experience with it than I did.

@LtSarge yeah amazing game Control. I played it back on PS4 but have the PS5 Ultimate Edition tucked away for a rainy day.

@colonelkilgore Plently of those recently mate!

@JohnnyShoulder well there are plenty of rainy days in South Wales as you well know 😉

@KilloWertz @colonelkilgore The game felt great to play on the PS5, so you're definitely in for a treat.

@FuriousMachine I sure didn't haha. The Foundation was absolutely terrible and I would describe it exactly as you did. Good lord was it frustrating to get through. I was constantly getting one-shotted by everything, what an unbalanced experience. It almost ruined my entire experience of Control. I'm so glad that I skipped most side missions and just booked it to the end before my patience ran out.

@LtSarge Ah, sad to hear, but also good to know that it wasn't just me being a curmudgeon
I did Foundation first and it almost made me miss out on AWE, as I was ready to hang it up after. Glad I didn't, though

@FuriousMachine @LtSarge Glad to see some love for Control, which I still consider one of my favorite PS5 experiences.

I will have to disagree on The Foundation DLC. I remember enjoying it quite a bit. I think I remember a couple encounters that were quite brutal, one in a large cave with endless hoards of enemies sniping from all corners. I do recall getting quite frustrated there. But the overall twist on a few gameplay elements and the really interesting artistic use of contrasting environmental color with the deep reds with the black and whites… well it was just a joy to behold.

@Th3solution Yeah, I was very pleasantly surprised by the game as a whole; definitely a high mark for me as well!
I also found the environment style cool at first, but after a while it just got too monotonous for me. Also, the void and its platforming aspects were never my favourite parts of the game, so the fact that most of the DLC was of a similar character didn't do it any favours in my book. It was a couple encounters that killed it for me, though. I remember one in particular where you float down from the checkpoint to another "island" and are beset by enemies in a fairly tight space; among them one of the "whirlwind" guys and bunch of the teleporter dudes (I hate that kind of enemy).

I had a similar issue with an encounter in the Witcher 3 recently, but the fact that many claimed that the encounter was one of the most difficult ones on Death March difficulty helped me power through.
You're escorting a dude carrying a monster baby, then get hit with a bunch of wraiths (who also teleport around and can gang up on you and kill you fast if you're not careful). Then, after that encounter you walk a bit further and get another one with even more wraiths in a tighter space. The killer here is that there is a somewhat lengthy cut scene before the encounter, after which you cannot save until the entire thing is done. I managed the first bunch of wraiths fine, but the second wave kicked my ass something fierce and then it was back to the cut-scene, the walk, the first fight, another walk and then being laid low once again... I could have gone off and done other things and come back later, but I felt that the problem wasn't so much the level and abilities of the character than my inability to handle the fight properly. So I don't blame the game for that, I blame it for not checkpointing or allowing me to save before the second fight.

That was a long winded way of saying "I hate teleporting enemies" (though, in The Witcher's defence, these enemies do signal their moves quite well so it's possible to learn their patterns and anticipate them, which I never managed to do with the teleporters in the Foundation DLC)