Topic: Games you've recently beat

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)

@FuriousMachine I agree, especially on the annoyance of poor checkpointing in combat encounters. Especially if there’s long cutscenes involved or long sections to get back to the encounter(s). Having 3 FromSoft games under my belt (and currently playing my fourth) as well as finishing Returnal (before the added save options and difficulty nerfing updates) has trained me to be less frustrated by the drag of having to repeat sections if I die before being victorious and reaching a save point. Still… it make it no less aggravating when those things happen. In the From games it’s all part of the intentional gameplay loop, and the game almost provokes and mocks the player with the idea of “You will die a lot and in the most unfair feeling ways possible.” Having just started Dark Souls 2, the introduction has this old hag giving you a little exposition as you start and she all but says that to you as she cackles away, clearly enjoying the thoughts of you pending misery.

But that’s all part of the core design of Soulslikes and people know what they’re getting into. At least now they do, with the notoriety of the genre. I hear there’s less long treks back to the encounter where you die in Elden Ring so less ‘lost progress’ and more it’s therefore more approachable.

But yeah, despite my better tolerance of the ‘long trek to a place, including unskippable cutscenes, followed by a quick cheap death’, I think it ruins some games when the design isn’t conducive to repeat play. Recently for me, I really appreciated the fact that Insomniac had very forgiving mid-boss checkpoints in Spider-Man 2, where even if you die during phase 3 of a long boss battle that you respawn just at the start of that phase, and with full health. In FF16 also, it was quite forgiving that the game even refilled your health items as well so you got to start right back where you left off with a full stock. For a narrative driven adventure I prefer that approach where you don’t get bogged down for hours trying to get past one point in the game. It keeps better flow to the story aspects.

And that’s where Control probably dropped the ball, because although its closer to Dark Souls in the cryptic narrative category than to the cinematic storytelling of Spider-Man or Witcher 3, it’s not a game that you want to repeat an encounter a dozen times in order to make progress. Theres enough of a push toward an end goal plot-wise that you could easily lose interest if you get stuck.

Part of my tolerance to The Foundation was also that I played both it and AWE as just usual side quests within my playthrough and didn’t even know they were DLC. 😅 They way they are integrated into the Ultimate edition on PS5, it’s not even clear that they’re add-on content because you can just select them in the normal flow of a game that has a lot of just random obscure and mysterious quest lines.

But speaking to something else you mentioned (sorry for my long sermon here 😅), combat encounters in confined spaces do drive me mad. But perhaps I ought to vent on that in the pet peeve thread. 😛

Just finished the main story of Fallout 4. I decided to finish the story with the Minutemen. I really liked the game! I will be honest, I liked it a little more than Fallout 3. Just a little! Both are amazing games!

Off to Far Harbor And I will start New Vegas as well.

@Th3solution I'll just briefly touch on Control here and then move over to the pet peeves thread for the rest.
I agree with your assessment on tightly story driven narrative vs a looser overarching narrative and that Control fits somewhere in-between, though closer to the latter than the former and that, even so, it's not a game that lends itself to the "try many times to refine your tactics" style encounter. Though, in its defence, these types of encounters were few and far between, so my overall enjoyment with it wasn't really impacted.

Spider Man 2. Amazing game, definitely worth the PlayStation. Played it on amazing. Venom was an epic final boss. My favorite parts were the MJ stealth parts, since they were so different compared to the rest of the game. The open world New York was crazy, and the story was surprisingly good, with dark elements. Anyways, I had such a good time with this game. Oh and as a fan of the comics, Silk at the end got me excited

@OctolingKing13 Nice! If you can finish SM2 on amazing then you’ll probably do okay on a Soulslike game. Some of those encounters are actually really tough towards the end and require some skill! Still Lies of P next?

@Th3solution thanks! i was actually surprised how easy venom was. i will probably get lies of p next when i get enough money for it, since it looks really fun. but if a sale for another game i want pops up i might have to wait:)

Inscryption, Shantae & The Seven Sirens & The Coma 2: Viscious Sisters.

Inscryption was good. Very good. I loved the card mechanics Especially how it evolves over the 3 acts..

I'm a bit torn on the Meta narrative myself on whether it elevates the package or hinders the card game itself.

Shantae was a good little Metroidvania. Nothing special sadly... There was a bit of backtracking that annoyed me towards the start. Level design was a bit meh. Did make me chuckle a fun times though!

The Coma 2 I'd kinda bought on a whim last year (For like £3 too) and only got around to finally playing it the past week.

... I quite enjoyed it actually.

A very small South Korean dev team from what I understand but the art style was neat, there was some pretty nice music in the soundtrack (And a very left curve vocal track in the credits that took me by surprise) and it being a 2D horror game was certainly an interesting choice.

Wasn't too spooky either, a nice way to dip my toes into the horror genre as it's been a long while.

@HallowMoonshadow I’m glad you ended up liking Inscryption. I wrote quite a lot about it over on the Game Club thread, but I enjoyed it as well. The meta was pretty cool I felt, but the card game portions were surprisingly addictive and satisfying. So I’ve opened up my mind to card games and am now playing Midnight Suns (alongside DS2, of course)

I was SO annoyed during the finale @Th3solution Magnificus' whole section was a Yu-Gi-Oh spoof with the duel discs and summoning the wizards and so I was bloody into it. There was even a Exodia ripoff you could find out about in the rules for the sigils... Only for it to be over in less then 5 minutes 😭

As for the meta narrative. I guess it was more just the whole Ooh! The Old Data is the devil! Or something. I dunno that part of the story was just really dumb in my opinion .

It's nice that it made you appreciate card games though!

@HallowMoonshadow I had no frame of reference really, so the final battle was just organized chaos for me. 😅 I do agree that it seemed to be over quickly.

Did you end up playing any of the Kaycee’s Mod that unlocks when you beat the game? Apparently it’s a much more intense dedicated card game add-on. I had my satisfaction by the end so didn’t try that it, but might go back later