Topic: User Impressions/Reviews Thread

@RogerRoger I'm glad they finally added proper same-sex romance support in this one. Even if it really is just window-dressing, that's also an important aspect of art. And life, really. Take a room, remove all sense of decoration and customization from it, and you have a perfectly functional area of internal space that nevertheless has something of a prison cell quality to it.

You really seem like you love this game to death! It's good to hear about the better balance of RPG aspects, and the way it makes choices more meaningful by restricting them to important story moments. And yeah, if the game must be a cover shooter, it's better to be as good a cover shooter as it can be.

Well-written as always. The enthusiasm is infectious, for sure.

Considering how dependent this experience apparently is on previous games in the series, it really makes it all the weirder (bit of a historical digression here) that EA chose to release ME3 by itself on the Wii U around that console's launch, instead of the entire trilogy.

You really blasted through these games!

One thing you should know about me is that I’ve been an Xbox gamer for most of my life. I’ve missed out on many creative and fun experiences on Playstation consoles like PaRappa the Rapper, Spyro the Dragon, inFAMOUS, Ratchet and Clank and Jak & Daxter. That all changed recently when I got my PS5 as none of the series X exclusives interested me all that much. I got Sackboy, Bugsnax, Astro’s Playroom and Spider-Man: Miles Morales. The latter of which included a code for a remastered version of a game I’ve wanted to play for a while now, Spider-Man (2018). I played the game and adored every second of it. I’ve put about 40 hours into it. I have a lot of thoughts about it. So, here’s a review of my 3rd favourite game of all time, Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered.

Game: Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered
Played on: PS5 (also on PS4)

The Story
Like every piece of superhero media, this game has a story. What do you think this is? Hiking? The game has the same sharp, witty writing of any other Spider-Man story and can actually get pretty funny at times. This game stars a slightly older, more experienced Spidey. He has a job with Dr. Octavius, he takes on bigger threats in NYC, he’s getting over a break up with MJ, he evades his taxes. At the start of the game, he defeats and locks up the KingPin, AKA. Wilson Fisk. With him gone, everyone wants a shot at being the new big crime boss. This includes Martin Li, villain alias Mister Negative. Martin also helps Peter’s aunt/mother figure May run a homeless center which creates some… complications. I won’t spoil too much but at one point in the game, a pandemic grows across the city… forcing everyone to… stay at home as outside isn’t safe anymore. Ok, this is hitting way too close to home so I think I’ll move on to the gameplay.

The Gameplay
This game takes place entirely in an open world New York City where you can go anywhere. There are always crimes to stop and civilians to help. One of my favourite missions is Helping Howard. In this mission, you help a homeless man find his friendly pigeons around the city. It’s just fun to swing around and all of a sudden “HOLY CRAP A PIGEON! C’MON, GRAB IT SPIDER-MAN!” Another fun mechanic is photography. Around the city, there are loads of New York landmarks to snap pictures of. While you swing, you can press a button which brings up the camera. When you zoom in to take a picture, time stops and you can angle your picture until it looks just right. Then, snap the picture and keep swinging. I’ve written an entire paragraph and I haven’t even mentioned the fantastic combat. This game has two main combat styles, silent and stealthy or loud and open. When you’re being stealthy, you have to be quiet, make distractions and perform silent takedowns. With the more open style, you’re way more hands on with the enemies. You have lots of different web types like trip wires which grab enemies and tie them up and impact webs which launch enemies. Square and Triangle are your attack buttons. Square is your button for actions like swing kicks and punches while every web related attack like web strikes and web grabs. There are also segments where you do puzzles at Octavius Enterprises where you create… things to make electronics work. I called them things because the puzzles are probably my second least favourite parts of the game. My (and many other people’s) least favourite parts are the M.J and Miles stealth missions. In these levels, you move very slowly and try to not get spotted by the enemies in the enemy base you’ve snuck into. M.J has these distraction bombs while Miles can hack things to distract people. These are super boring as they involve zero fighting. This is until later in the game where M.J can call spidey down to web people up and tie them to the ceiling.

Well, that was a long paragraph wasn’t it? Time to move onto…
The Music
This game has one of my favourite theme songs in gaming history next to other bangers like “I am Astro Bot” and “Jump up! Super-star!”. While you swing, epic orchestral music plays. When you swing, it gets louder and more instruments join in. Every song on this OST is amazing now that I think about it. Seriously, the soundtrack’s on Spotify, apple music, etc. Listen to it.

The other things that I couldn’t put into other paragraphs because they either weren’t long enough to fill an entire section, felt to long or I had no idea which paragraph to put them in so here they are let’s goooooo
Voice acting: This game is super well acted. Yuri Lowenthal does a stellar job in the titular role and so do all the other voice actors.
The Graphics: On PS5, this game is drop dead gorgeous. The ray traced lighting is stunning when it shines off of the NYC buildings and the reflections are amazing.
Peter’s face: I didn’t wanna touch this subject with a 50 foot web sling but it played on my mind so much that I might as well mention it. For the remastered version of the game, Insomniac decided to change Peter’s face model. Reasons? None. Angry fans? A lot. I’m about to make a lot of other marvel fans want to kill me right now but screw it. I like the face. He doesn’t look too old to the point where he’s in his 30s but isn’t so young that he looks 12. The old face looks pretty old for a character who is in his mid 20s.

Conclusion
Overall, this is a masterpiece. Easily the best marvel game ever made and my second favourite piece of marvel media (next to my favourite, Guardians of the galaxy (2014)). It plays well, it has an amazing soundtrack, it has beautiful graphics and an amazing story. Sure, there are the puzzles and M.J missions but who cares? The pros out-weigh the cons by a landslide.

Pros
-Amazing Graphics
-Banging soundtrack
-Fun Combat
-Massive, detailed world
-Great Writing
-Great Voice Acting

Cons
-Boring, non Spidey Stealth Missions
-Mediocre puzzles
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
10/10 Outstanding

@mookysam I've actually played a lot of the games I missed out on through stuff like the PS Plus collection! Specifically, inFAMOUS, Ratchet and Clank and PaRappa. I still have yet to play Jak and daxter, Sly Cooper and Spyro but I will get to them eventually.

@RogerRoger I really enjoyed reading your much anticipated Mass Effect 3 review. I had been holding out to see what memories it brought back to me, as we discussed. And I have to say, you did a pretty good sales job there. 😄 I feel thoroughly convinced in its greatness. I especially like the notion that the last few minutes isn’t the measure with which to judge the game, rather the whole game is the ending, when the series is taken into account. That’s a good way to look at it.

And seeing the nuance between ME2 and ME3 through your eyes is an education to me. I honestly didn’t feel very big differences between the two games other than the slight tweaks in gameplay and a new story and characters. But I can see now the significance of some of those seemingly minor changes.

It’s an interesting point about the narrative logic issues and I think maybe I skirted past those things on my first (and only) play of ME2 due to the large suspension of disbelief I put into Sci-Fi as a whole. Now that I’m older and have a more critical and educated eye, I’m finding movies that I liked a few years ago don’t resonate as well with me, and I suspect ME2 will probably suffer the same fate. Not to mention playing it in a vacuum without ME1 made for easier forgiveness of the narrative dissonance. Anyways — great job with pulling out my memories for reconsideration and some good nostalgia. 😄

I also can totally relate to your sentiment of having difficulty replaying a game to make different narrative decisions which conflict with your own personal internal canon. It’s an issue I’ve struggled with on many choice based games. Once I see it through to the end, I typically have trouble seeing the story any other way.

@mookysam Thanks! While it's not my favorite iteration of Tetris this generation (nothing can really touch Tetris Effect, IMO), 99 really brings an interesting new approach to the table, and it does strengthen the value proposition of NSO for me. And I generally don't play f2p stuff, but it works really well in this instance, and is completely lacking in predatory monetization.

Pac-Man 99 is absolutely worth a try if you're a fan, although I think you'll be surprised by how different it feels once you grok the new mechanics. I've been jumping back and forth between OG Pac-Man and the battle royale one, and I definitely marveled at how different two games could feel despite being largely identical in terms of the actual presentation and gameplay.

@RogerRoger Eh, I appreciate genuine enthusiasm. Especially considering so many people seem to just want to be angry about stuff when talking about games. For me, hobbies are inherently meaningless and only matter insofar as they bring a sense of joy to one's life, so even if I acknowledge the bad things, I prefer to focus on the good. So your passion for the game is appreciated.

Yeah, the customization and optional stuff adds flavor to games as it does to life. I guess someone could technically create a version of Mass Effect that eliminates all of the non-essential stuff and reduces it only to what it needs to function, but would you even enjoy a game like that? I do think it'd be cool if the developers could find a way to make romance options impact the gameplay more, though. Maybe Bioware will remember how to create great games again someday.

Yeah, ME3 was part of Nintendo's "We have third party stuff too!" push on Wii U, which backfired so spectacularly that big companies spent years ignoring the Switch out of fear that nobody would buy their games again. The problem is that 90% of the people who bought the Wii U are people who are hardcore Nintendo fans and only buy first-party games, since everyone else avoided the console.

Admittedly, if EA wanted to appeal to a new demographic, porting over the last game in a story-heavy trilogy probably wasn't the way to do it, although I don't think it would have mattered much.

To answer your question, that version only came with the From Ashes and Extended Cut DLC. So, yes, I feel bad for the five people or so who decided to pick up this late, full-priced port on that ill-fated console.

@Jackpaza0508 Nice piece on Spider-Man Remastered! You must be swamped with choice having never owned a PS4. It's probably the ideal way to jump in with the PS5 at launch, though, since you're able to play a bunch of these exclusives you missed out on early in the gen while support is still somewhat sparse for next-gen content.

The game really does look nice (nice pictures). I have no opinion on the changed face, having never played the original game, although I do think this new Spidey looks a bit younger than mid-20s to me. And yeah, even having not played it, I suspect it probably is the best Marvel-related game ever made, since it's a polished AAA open worlder, and there's not a lot of competition otherwise (I guess the Marvel Ultimate Alliance games are a thing, but the recent one kinda looks like a mobile game to me; not attractive at all).

Your writing is becoming better and better, by the way!

@RogerRoger It’s interesting because in some artistic arenas like video games and movies, progress has absolutely improved the media that is produced, and yet sometimes I’m amazed at how games and movies have regressed due to the reliance on technology. When I look back at some artistic media I see a larger focus on weaving good characters, good narratives, clever uses of techniques to cover up technical shortcomings, and wonderful music; while in a lot of modern media the reliance on computer generated effects and modern advanced procedures makes for shallow end products. The era of remasters we’ve gone through has really highlighted this duality. Some remakes are properly brilliant when you take a fantastic game and then spit shine it to its highest luster, whereas sometimes it exposes the fact the game was just good for its time but hasn’t aged well. In the case of Mass Effect it appears that we have some examples of both scenarios.

So, a bit of background. After looking back at some of my older reviews from earlier in the year, I realised “Wow, these are terrible!” So I thought, “Sure, I can delay that Mario Galaxy review I was working on to rewrite these. Starting off with Astro’s Playroom, my first review.

Game: Astro’s Playroom
Played on: PS5

The Gameplay
This game is a basic 3D platformer. Nothing more, nothing less. You have a basic punch which you can hold to launch a spin attack. You also have a laser hover which can get you across long gaps and even attack enemies that are caught below the lasers. There are also occasional power-up and gadget sections where you get into a monkey costume and climb mountains or even wield a bloody machine gun! These are all really fun and make fantastic use of the dualsense controller’s features (don’t worry, we’ll get there when we get there).

Speaking of spin attacks...
The Music
The music in this game is so, SO good! Every song is catchy and upbeat! A lot of the songs are also dynamic too! Some change when you have a power-up, some change when you enter a different area! My favourite example of this is in my favourite song from the game “Follow Me (Into the Storm)” Usually, there’s a robotic voice singing “oooooohhh, yeeeeeah” over the song but when you enter the stormy area, it sings “OOOOOHHHHH NOOOOOOO”. Another favourite is “I’m your GPU”. This song is sung by a living graphics card. Yes, this is real. The lyrics are actually really catchy! Ever since I first played the level, I’ve been hearing “GPU! Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it for you!” in my head (it really is a problem). Please show Kenneth C M Young some love by listening to his songs he composed for the game on any streaming service. Do it, I’ll wait.

Kick! Punch! It's all in the mind!
The Graphics
This game looks fantastic. No joke. The shine on Astro’s face, the super high quality texture work on the playstation artefacts you collect around the worlds of the game, the surprisingly realistic water, it’s all amazing. This game thought “Oh, new console? More power!” and went freaking nuts. Astro is also super adorable, in case you didn’t notice.

Subway! Where winners eat! ow...
The DualSense
This game not only shows off how the PS5 can run beautiful games without breaking a sweat, but also shows off the capabilities of the controller itself. I haven’t seen a game do that since 1-2 Switch (I’m not gonna go off on one about that game and why this is better as I’ve actually had a lot of fun with both games)! One example is the super realistic vibrations which are shown off by having each footstep astro takes be tiny little vibration in the controller which actually changes when you walk on different surfaces! From crunchy vibrations on the sand to clangy (actually a word, I think) vibrations when astro walks on metal. Another example is the adaptive triggers. It’s kinda hard to explain but here goes. Usually, the triggers are like any other triggers, sorta loose and springy. However, when you do certain things in the game like using a power up, the triggers become more tense or require more force to push down. One example is the gacha machine. It’s controlled with two big robot hands and when you have a capsule in your hands, you have to press down the triggers to open it. The triggers make it feel like you’re opening the capsule by having the trigger be hard to press up to a certain point where all tension is gone. Sounds confusing, right? You’ll probably get the gist if you have a ps5 and play the game. You really need to feel it to know what I mean.

Thank you for releasing me, Spyro, but I have to go!
The References
This game is packed, positively seeping with references to past playstation games. From classics like Ratchet and Clank, Uncharted, InFAMOUS, Sly Cooper and Metal Gear Solid to more obscure games like Knack, The Order 1886, Vib Ribbon, PAIN! and Jumping Flash. There are also these amazing PS Artefacts to find. They’re hyper realistic replicas of playstation controllers, consoles, accessories, you get the deal. There are well known items like the original DualShock as well as lesser known items like the PocketStation, PS1 mouse… PSP GPS receiver and… the PSVR receiver? Seriously, who thought “Oh yeah, I love the PSVR connector! I hope it’s in this game as a fully modeled replica!”

Subway, where winners... I made that joke already, didn't I?
One Last thing, This game is very, very, very short. Around 3 Hours (5 if you’re a true hardcore dorito gamer who 100% completes the game).

"Keeps your granny entertained."
Conclusion
Overall, this is a next gen masterpiece that will leave you wanting more. At no extra cost with your PS5, it's a must play for any PS5 owner.

Pros
Gorgeous Graphics
Insanely Good Controls
A metric butt tonne of references
Catchy, fun music
Amazing DualSense usage

Cons
Way too short, even for a free game

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
10/10 Outstanding

@Jackpaza0508 I enjoyed reading your Astrobot review (as well as other reviews you’ve done). The screenshots are a nice addition as well. Totally agree with your take; the game is great and seeing your review I realize that I missed a lot of the little Easter eggs even though I got the platinum.
I like a short game every once and a while, so the length didn’t bother me. But yeah regardless, Team Asobi nailed it.

@Jackpaza0508 Believe me: anyone who writes and turns out work consistently is going to look at their older stuff and cringe. The important thing is to keep striving to accomplish more with each subsequent piece.

Your own style has definitely come more into its own, even in the short time you've been submitting to this thread, and you've also been going more into detail about what you like and dislike in each game, which is terrific.

If I get a PS5 at some point, Astro's Playroom will probably be the first game I play. You might not wish to disparage 1, 2, Switch, but I do think it embarrasses that game a little by being both a higher quality offering AND free with the system.

Actually, it's interesting how Nintendo-like a device the PS5 has been so far in terms of leading with exclusives early on and including a number of interesting hardware gimmicks into the controller.

I agree it's an incredible-looking game. In general, I feel like vibrant and at least partially stylized art-styles really shine on the more powerful PS5 hardware, which is turning out games that look like Disney movies.

Looking forward to that Galaxy review! It's a favorite of mine. Probably my all-time favorite 3D platformer.

I started to type this up in the Current PS4 games playing thread, but it got a bit long, so I dumped it over here.

I played Divinity Original Sin over the weekend on PS4. I thought I would be a good testing ground for Disco Elysium, as there are both similar enough types of game in my head.

I've enjoyed it. I've not played many CRPG's and the more recent ones haven't clicked with me. The main thing that put me off was the amount of text to read, and the ones I played in recent times had not been fully voiced. DOS is though, although it does bring up a dialogue box which fills up a bug chunk of the screen, which I'm not a fan of. The writing and voice acting is class, with some genuine LOL moments. There is a certain ability which you can unlock which allows you to speak to animals. This is official The Best Thing Ever, as they all have different accents. Rats have French accents, chickens have Texan (i think?) accents and cats sound all smarmy like you expect.

It can feel quite plodding when moving around the landscape with no run ability (the characters jog at best when going full tilt) and i really miss the double/quadruple speed from FFXIIZR. There are transport gates scattered around the map, which does makes things a bit better.

Combat is turn based which I'm ok with. What I really like is that you can combine certain elements to boost damage. So you can douse a few enemies with an oil spell then hit em with a fire spell for increased damage. Or if it is raining, cast an electrical spell. Or cast a rain spell to put out someone who is on fire. And so on.

Story is good so far. What starts out as an investigation into a murder soon takes a few twists and turns (the main one I did not see coming. If anyone says they did they are lying or should be enrolled in the Mystic Meg School of Fortune Tellers). And there are whole bunch of side quests to do, which I have hardly touched, but some of them do tie into the main quest. The aforementioned talking animals are not just a novelty eiher, as some animals can assist you with some missions, like a dog helping sniff out his owners grave and smell evidence 'borrowed' from suspects, which he can determine if his dead owner was with them. Quite excellent.

Anyway, I will be continue to play it, as a sorta side game to Returnal. Which is a weird side game for me, as I usually go for smaller games and this is supposed to be a huge time sink. But it felt different enough to Returnal for it to click.

@JohnnyShoulder Glad that DOS sounds like it’s clicking for you. @kyleforrester87 will be proud.
I have always intended to play it (or DOS2) but the time commitment is a little daunting. Will be interested to hear if the game continues to hold up for you over the dozens of hours.

@Th3solution Yeah I wasn't expecting or planned to play it, but after dipping into a few games which weren't doing it for me, I decided to bite the bullet. It is one of those games I've always put off playing, and has been in my library for years, so will be good to finally experience it in full.

@RogerRoger Nice 30 year anniversary tribute! As we know, I’ve never been a Sonic fan and failed my recent attempt to jump on board late, but it’s clearly a cherished franchise that has stood the test of time.

Are you excited about the Sonic 2 movie? The little guy sure has a way of remaining relevant in popular culture.

@RogerRoger Yes, even as a casual outsider to the series, I’m aware the much maligned Sonic ‘06 and it’s reputation. There are so many Sonic games and reinventions of the game style that I give credit to the team for at least trying to innovate.

But the discussion gives me a chance to revisit one of my favorite YouTube videos of all time. Can’t help but laugh every time I see it. Never grows old —

Forgive me Rog if this kid is actually you a few years ago 😜. If so, I admire your passion, buddy.

@RogerRoger Thank you for taking the time to read! Hope everything is all well in the land of RogerRoger.

@RogerRoger I think you had recommended I take a shot at a 3D Sonic game sometime and I do think it would resonate better with me. Perhaps I’ll take an opportunity to do that one day. But we know how retro-averse I usually am. 😄

@JohnnyShoulder Glad you're enjoying it. I wonder if you'll make it to the end. It is long and gets kinda obtuse. One of my favourite games though.

@RogerRoger Yeah think you summed up things quite well there for me too!

@mookysam It has quite a British sense of humour to it, which is one of the reasons why the dialogue sits so well with me.

@kyleforrester87 I've changed the difficulty to explorer, as I was getting walloped whenever I faced enemies outside of the first town, so hopefully that will make things a bit more bearable in the long run.

@RogerRoger Indeed we do! Has been a godsend during this pandemic. My mate in work is in heaven today being both a Minecraft and Sonic fan!

@JohnnyShoulder The way elements interact in DOS sounds pretty cool, honestly. CRPGs aren't my favorite genre, but I've enjoyed stuff like Dragon Age and Diablo in the past, and I've heard particularly good things about these games, so I would like to get around to them one day. On PC.

I might play just to see these Texas-accented chickens you speak of.

Thanks for posting! I enjoyed your impressions piece.

@RogerRoger An anniversary post! That was well-timed, for sure. Even more interesting that it was a rather even-tempered look at a famously looked-down-upon game, but I appreciate that approach, given my own occasional frustrations with online echo chambers as well. Communities can often take a reasonable criticism about something, or perhaps a more-or-less accurate observation, and inflate its significance to the rest of the product until it becomes so exaggerated and overwhelming that the spirit of the original criticism or observation becomes lost in the process. If you're anything at all like me, I imagine the dismissive and sometimes vicious attitudes adopted toward this flawed (but not disastrous) experience might have pinned you into being more defensive of the game than you would otherwise be in conversations, if only to counterbalance the tsunami of invective and negativity being ushered toward it. Which is always a weird place to be.

Given how many people complain about Sonic games being stuffed with characters that aren't Sonic, it does seem reasonable to assume that Sonic's campaign is all that will matter to many of them. It's comforting to hear, at least, that at least one of the campaigns that make up Sonic '06 hold up considerably well given the age and reputation of the game as a whole. It rather seems like Silver's campaign would have benefitted from being given a sharper focus in the advertising, even if his name lacks the clout that Sonic still manages to muster to this day.

The OST is definitely decent. The Solaris Phase 2 track, in particular, has a sense of drama to it that I enjoy. But then, Sonic games almost always have decent scores, I think ("almost" because The Dark Brotherhood exists, lol).

Oh, and those load times sound painful. I imagine it's particularly nauseating returning to minute long loadtimes after playing on a PS5! If they're long enough, or even happen often enough, they can sour an otherwise great experience, or make a middling experience that much more painful.

The slowdown you mention that makes it easier to play is really interesting, since it reminds me quite a bit of old NES games where the movement would slow to a crawl when too many particles or enemies filled the screen. I suppose in today's world of tech fetishism these would be looked down on, but I think a lot of those old games would have been almost impossible to play without the technical limitations of the hardware they were on saving those of us without godlike reaction times!

As always, your review was impeccably crafted and almost painfully witty. And it's funny because, as an unrelated observation, I had been thinking off-handedly yesterday: "I haven't seen Rog post in a while," and then, boom, you're here!