Topic: User Impressions/Reviews Thread

@nessisonett Yeah, my reflexes with kb+m are defo improving. I can't imagine playing something like DOOM on a console at this point.

Over the weekend I finished up Trials of Mana (PS4)! Given how limited my PS4 time has been lately, it was a journey a few months in the making, even though the game (including post game) only took me about 30 hours.

Gameplay:

• A full on remake of a previously Japan only Super Famicom action RPG. It's pretty standard fare in terms of base gameplay, but the way you progress through the game has a pretty unique twist.
• Upon startup you pick 3 of 6 characters (each of which fills one of the typical roles, such as Duran being the "Knight" archetype, Hawkeye the "Thief", Angela the "Mage", etc.), and while you'll run into all 6 on your journey, it's these 3 that will join your party on your quest (with the first selection taking the role of the "main" character). Your character selection determines where in the world you'll start the game, and ultimately, even which final boss you face (more on this later).
• Battles take place in real time directly within the environment (no random battles here, though there are some scenarios, usually near a treasure chest, where a group of enemies will pop up when you get close), though there is a surrounding ring that denotes the "battle area". With a few exceptions such as boss battles, by pressing up against the edge of the area you'll build up a meter that lets you disengage the enemy & escape. More powerful enemy attacks will be telegraphed with a red area of effect, giving you a chance to get out of dodge before they hit (bosses will have some super powerful attacks that encompass the entire battle area, and you'll usually have to destroy some objects that have blue life bars in order to interrupt the attack, usually stunning the boss in the process). Also, you can only use up to 10 of any given item during a fight (for example, you can have 53 Cups of Wishes on you, which revive a fallen party member, but you can only use 10 of them in the middle of a fight).
• During combat, In addition to basic light & strong attacks (with the latter being effective at breaking armored enemies barriers), you'll unlock a series of special attacks that are mapped to L1 + a corresponding face button (these use up an energy meter). By pressing up or down on the D-Pad you'll pause the game and bring up one of two ring menus (one of which houses usable items, the other your character's spells). You use L2 & R2 to switch between characters (this works outside of battle too, unless you're in a town, where you must be the "main" character), and you can dodge & guard too (though I honestly never did the latter outside of the tutorial).
• When it comes to powering up your characters there are multiple ways to do so. The most standard ways are simply levelling up via battle experience (which works as expected), and obtaining new gear (in a pretty straightforward affair, the battle equipment available to you when you arrive in a new town will be unanimously better than what the last one offered). However, you also earn training points when you level up which can be spent on further stat increases, new spells, and "Abilities" (while the extra stat increases & spells are immediately applied/learned, "Abilities" are passive buffs that must be equipped once learned, and each character can only have 4 equipped at the start). While some "Abilities" can only be equipped by the party member that unlocked them, there's actually a good amount that can be equipped by any party member, no mater who you unlocked it with. The last and most important way to upgrade your characters is obtaining new Classes...
• At certain points in your adventure you'll be able (and are expected) to transform your party members into new Classes. Doing so grants them a new look (though you can switch back to earlier costumes in the menu), massive overall stat boosts, a new special attack, the ability to equip 2 more "Abilities" than before (so after your first Class change you go from equipping 4 to 6, then up to 8 during the next Class change), as well as an extension of your basic attack combo. At every juncture you'll be asked to choose between Light & Dark transformations, each of which has it's own look & abilities (this doesn't affect story, as you're not becoming "evil" by choosing the Dark version of a Class over the Light version, it just changes the focus of the stat & "Ability" upgrades, such as a more attack focused upgrade versus a defensive one). New to this version is a 4th Class, which you can only unlock during post game, and doesn't have Light or Dark variants (it's mentioned as having the benefits of both the Light & Dark versions of Class 3, merged into one).
  
  
  Class 1 & Class 3 forms of my party.
• Fields & dungeons are pretty linear in terms of design, with only slight exploratory elements such as treasure chests off in little alcoves or a fork in the road that lead to different locations. Dungeons may have simple platforming elements, dangerous terrain such as poison/lava, very simple puzzles (such as flipping a switch to unlock a barrier), and occasionally an unlockable shortcut once you get far enough in (incase you have to leave & come back). Like with most RPGs of this type you'll eventually unlock sea & air travel which make traversing the world easier, and you are actually given the opportunity to choose your next objective at certain points, giving it some open elements.
• Oh, there's also a character called Lil' Cactus hidden in most towns, fields, & dungeons (sometimes in two places in the larger areas), and you unlock certain perks for finding him enough times (such as free stays at inns, revealing the locations of unopened treasure chests on your map, ocassional doubling or tripling of battle exp, & more).
• Also, you obtain Item Seeds (which come in different rarities) from treasure chests & defeating enemies that you can plant in pots at inns (and near select save areas) that harevest a variety of items (such as usable items or even equipment). Sometimes you'll obtain equipment that's better than what you'll get in nearby shops (by endgame I was unlocking better equipment through seeds than what was available to purchase at the best shop).

Audio/Visual:

• It clearly doesn't have the budget of something like Final Fantasy VII Remake, but it has a bright & vibrant look that I really liked. Despite the fact that it's based on a 16-bit game, I found that the environments, while not really complex, played with verticality quite well (if I hadn't known beforehand, I don't think I would have been able to tell it's retro origins).
  
  
  
  
  I couldn't think of one or two environmental pics to post, so I picked them all! You later cross in the shallows of the lake below, and the mountainous bridge high above.
• The music fit the game I felt.

Story:

• The nations of the world are growing closer to conflict, and as the main character you chose you set out from your home country to put a stop to the fighting. Not soon after you meet up with Fairy (a fairy named Fairy) who reveals that Mana (the world's magic energy) is waning, evil forces are on the move (likely behind all the strife), and only by obtaining the legendary Mana Sword can things be made right. The thing is there's actually three different villainous factions, and while you scuffle with all three on your journey, your party makeup determines which one becomes dominate and ends up the endgame villain...
• Duran & Angela are after the Crimson Wizard, Reitz (spelled that wrong) & Hawkeye have to contend with Belladonna, while Kevin & Charlotte are up against some sort of marionette dude. If you choose a party that doesn't have one of those pairs (let's say Duran, Reitz, & Charlotte), you face off against Duran & Angela's boss by default.
  
  The Crimson Wizard has been cornered.
• Otherwise the game is a pretty standard JRPG fantasy tropes.
• It does have a post game that's new to the remake that features a superboss that's the same no matter who you pick. I won't dwell on it too much due to spoilers, but it adds a couple hours to the runtime at most.

Overall:

• Really just a great comfort food JRPG, and I had a good time with it.
  

@RR529 Trials of Mana exceeded expectations, apparently, so I wouldn't be surprised to see more remakes like this in the future. S-E is finally realizing there's a sweet spot between zero budget mobile phone remakes and AAA, cutting edge of development-tier remakes ala FF7R.

So when a character transitions to a new class, there are two alternate looks for them depending on whether they opt for "light" or "dark" transformations?

Glad to hear you enjoyed it. Nice review overall. I really need to get to this someday.

@RogerRoger Absolutely my favourite Sonic game and I wouldn’t even put that down to nostalgia. The sound mixing is absolutely horrible, with music blaring at 5 billion decibels while Sonic attempts to scream through it but the plot does actually stick, especially the Dark story, I definitely agree. The soundtrack is awful enough to enjoy, especially the Knuckles raps although a couple of the beats in those are legitimately great. I think I enjoy the treasure hunting levels the most, with the mech levels bottom mostly for the ear splitting beep when you lock onto enemies. The only proper annoying section of the game for me is the final Shadow/Sonic level and boss fight near the end. It’s just a proper solid game that really is more than the sum of its parts. Plus the Chao Garden is amazing, spent so much time in there.

@Ralizah, yeah, you get a completely different costume if you opt for a Dark transformation over a Light one, plus a different focus on your overall stat increase, and different abilities/spells to learn (for example, when Reitz transforms to Class 2, if you go with Light she will be able to learn spells that buff your party, however if you choose Dark she will learn spells that nerf enemies instead).

@Kidfried, great write-up. It doesn't sound like my kind of game, but it does look to have a stunning aesthetic.

@RogerRoger, thanks for reading, and I really enjoyed your Sonic Adventure 2 write-up as well. My best friend when I was younger had the GameCube version & we played it a lot, oftentimes switching off between levels, but mostly just raising Chao, lol. I also really dig the "City Escape" & "Live & Learn" tracks, and usually have them on my phone, lol.

Focus on You (PSVR). I had actually went through this months ago, but didn't want to do a write-up until I played around in the post game mode, which I recently did.

Gameplay:

• A VR dating sim spread out across 8-10 chapters or so, taking you a few hours at most. In each chapter you'll be in a different location (such as a park, classroom, cafe, home, beach, etc.) where you'll be in a stationary position (though you can look around obviously, and at certain points you'll move to a different area in the room) and interact with objects & people in your immediate vicinity.
• Most of the gameplay revolves around dialogue choices when talking to Yua (the girl whom you are trying to woo) or texting a friend on your in game phone, and taking photographs with your in game camera (more on this to come). Otherwise there are ocassional small minigames where you'll have to make a cup of coffee or a smoothie for Yua when you are at work in the cafe, and other things of that nature.
  
• As I mentioned before you take photographs, which is the main gameplay element. There's a shoot in almost every chapter, and in these segments you're sort of taken out of VR (when pulling out your camera) and look at things through a flat image floating in the void (I guess simulating looking at the screen of a digital camera). You can rotate the screen to portrait & landscape orientations & implement a "beauty mode" (which focuses on Yua, or whatever else it is you're photographing, and blurs the background), and you can ask her to do one of three different poses in each scenario (you'll have the option to move on after the first couple poses, but you can take as much time as you need).
• While you can effect some things (such as choosing between 2 different outfits for Yua to wear during a chapter), I'm not really sure if it's possible to "lose" the game or get a bad ending. I know you get a trophy for doing things like making her favorite type of coffee or smoothie, but as there's no way to figure that out other than trial & error, I don't think it effects the end outcome (maybe the reward is just seeing her response in the moment).
• Upon clearing the game you unlock a post game area where you can listen to the game's soundtrack, look at all the photos you've taken, and replay the game's chapters in a "free play" state, placing Yua in any outfit & hairstyle you like (you can unlock outfits not worn during the story, so maybe that's the reward for doing things like making her preferred coffee during the story?)
  
  Come now, you can't go swimming in class.
• It is possible to play with Move controllers (which I don't yet have, but should be getting), but you can play with the Dualshock as well.

Audio/Visual:

• Graphically it looks stunning, seriously one of the best looking VR games I've played. Sure, that leads to some blurriness in some of the more detailed environments, but as the vast majority of things you interact with are up close & there's no quick movements, it's never a problem. Whatever the case, my inner weeb was excited about getting to sit in a Japanese style classroom
  
  
  
  Anyone like "Rony" brand electronics (actually, it does a good job looking like Sony when not right up on you due to the resolution).
• The soundtrack consists of soft melodic tunes & piano riffs that fit the romantic tone of the game.

Story:

• You play as a student in an Arts high school into photography, and after noticing your skill while in a local park, fellow student Yua Han recruits you into one of her own projects. You see, she's an aspiring fashion designer & she needs someone to shoot her in some of her designs for an upcoming competition. Along the way you two will become more than partners on a project.
  
• I won't say it's award winning or anything, but the VR setup makes it many times more engaging than any traditional VN dating sims I've tried.

Conclusion:

• It was something a bit different, but I'm glad I gave it a go, as I found it to be a unique experience and much more investing than a traditional dating sim.
  

@Kidfried Hooray, KR0 and Hollow Knight are probably the two games from this gen I'd love to be able to talk about more with people!

I utterly loved the art style of the game and the soundtrack is one of my favourite. The bluegrass tracks are fantastic; THAT scene, and the music in it, is an absolute iconic moment; and the music that sees out the final act is chilling. The rest of the minimalist ambient music is just perfect.

Like you say, the choices in the game are cleverly done as they make it feel like your story but without affecting the direction the game takes. Act 4 has the most choice, and encourages a second play through, as you can see the story from different perspectives.

The pacing was a little weird as Act 4 was a behemoth and I had to take a little time away from the game afterwards.. but then Act 5 is done and dusted in no time. I would have been pretty miffed if I'd waited the years it took to make after Act 4 came out!

It is absolutely one of the most unique games I've ever played and one hell of an experience.

@Kidfried Interesting write-up for an interesting sounding game. I've grown wary of the 'artsy walking sim' genre as of late, but this one seems unique. I like the dynamic you highlight of the game filling in the holes of its story by engaging in a sort of structural dialogue with the player. I'll admit I had no idea what this was about, exactly, but I felt like you did a superb job highlighting what makes it interesting.

I'll need to add this to my wishlist!

I take it you played on PS4?

@RogerRoger Oho, this is Shadow the Hedgehog's first appearance, eh? I'll confess I never played this one. I'm glad the Chao Garden returned, though. Because that, combined with the Chao minigame you used to develop the things on the Dreamcast's VMU, was probably my favorite part of that game.

It sounds decent. Nice to know they cut the some of the inane fat for this entry to create something tighter and more satisfying.

@RR529 Neat. While the PSVR seems to lack a bit in big exclusive blockbuster titles, I'm really interested in these more niche and unique titles that try to do something less explicitly video gamey.

The devs including some generic stand-in for Sony in a PS4 game is a bit amusing. Do you happen to take your virtual girlfriend to a "WcDonalds" at any point?

@Ralizah You should absolutely hop on Sonic Adventure 2, it’s like if a 3D Sonic game was actually good. By that, I mean it doesn’t have any glaring horrible problems or a fatal flaw, which 99.9% of Sonic games have. I know some people prefer having hub worlds but I feel they break up play and always felt a bit pointless.

@RogerRoger nice review of sonic adventure 2! You've made me remember some of the other bits of this game such as the rouge/Knuckles levels and Sonicio Kart which I played a fair bit on the GameCube. One of the mortal Kombat games had a similarly half-baked but still fun while it lasted kart mode. I also remember hatching eggs in the Chao garden for ages, and unlocking a few different Chao gardens and it being tedious. Also connecting my game boy advance to the GameCube and downloading the chaos to it for whatever reason! (Probably just because I could!)

@Kidfried Cel-shaded graphics? NLife will call it a BOTW clone then 😉

@Ralizah, unfortunately there's no "WcDonald's" appearance, which is a big missed opportunity now that you bring it up! (I always got a kick out of it when I first seen it in InuYasha, and was amused to find out it's a common "off brand" location in a lot of Japanese anime/games).

If things go right I should be making more regular VR reviews. Due to my limited PS4 time these days, the general briefness of VR titles is a lot more appealing right now, and I just got in a pair of Move controllers so my options are wide open.

@Ralizah after buying doom 3 on 3 separate occasions (pc version when it came out, BFG edition on PS3 and finally the Switch port) I have finally finished all it has to offer!

I've read your review and also @RogerRoger 's thoughts and I think I largely agree with most of it.

I think a few things I'd differ on, though not massively, are the audio logs. I listened to all of them but maybe not so religiously. Often I would listen to them while reading the e mails so I may not have taken in all the information but I think I got a general sense of what was going on. If the audio logs were longer than the e mails then I'd carry on listening while playing. I quite enjoyed finding them though and thought they were a good addition to the sort of game that Doom 3 is.

The other thing is the flashlight, which I honestly can't imagine - especially at my current age - having the patience to play this game without the BFG "upgrade". I think if I was younger and had more time I'd enjoy the flashlight management of the original Doom 3 but I am glad it was the way it was in my play through. That being said, the battery life of it somewhat emulated the intended feel. There were a lot of times I was doing a bit of resource management with regards to the flashlight battery. Turning it off and on to conserve it, particularly in that sequence you mentioned where you hug a brightly lit specimen container.

This game was really long, especially if you include the expansion packs. I think my playthrough times were more or less similar to yours and the Lost levels added another 3 hours so I guess I spent around 26-27 hours with this game. It could drag at times but I was determined to see it through on this occasion! But that's a lot of gameplay for £8 (forgetting the money I spent on the PC and PS3 versions).

Hmm what else, I did notice there was some "music" in one of the lost levels Hell areas that had kind of that similar baby wailing noise like doom 64. Not much else to say on that apart from my recognition of it!

I liked all the enemies, I had no idea until I was well into the expansion packs that what I was calling a Cyber-Dog was actually supposed to be a Pinky. That was kind of a weird turn out! The arch vile was definitely an annoying baddy and I'd frequently expend some rocket ammo on those suckers just to get rid of them. I did think the way the Cacodemons flew around after you shot them was really funny, a bit like throwing an inflatable ball around in a swimming pool. Those Mancubi were real s***heads though! Especially with their gammy mouth monitors, very creepy! I'm glad the pain elementals were left out of this one... Also those cyber cherubs were freaky! It's quite a scary game on the whole.

The grabber gun I thought was ok, I messed around with it a bit but I think like you say it wasn't as necessary to the game as it was in half life 2. Catching projectiles was a ballache unless I used the artifact first which meant the grabber only got much use in the RoE expansion and was left largely untouched in the Lost Levels. The Super shotgun was a welcome addition though and bar a few bits of the game, was my weapon of choice for most of both expansions.

For some morbid reason, despite being an atheist so it's not actually that morbid for me, I am quite obsessed with Hell and different depictions of it. I just find it quite interesting so Doom 3's interpretations were quite cool. My favourite bit of hell was in the Lost missions expansion though. I thought the iconography stuck out a lot in that version of hell. Maybe I liked the more open areas in it too, especially the bit that had the demented crucifixes.

Generally I think I quite enjoyed the brevity of the lost missions expansion and I think perhaps that the main game was split up more noticeably into 8 level chunks similar to that then it might have helped the pacing and made it feel a little less long.

Overall, I really enjoyed the game but I am glad it's over and now I'll be onto Doom 16. Ive seen mentions of collectables in the game club thread so I might make more of an effort to find them on this play through than I did last time.

Edit: one thing I forgot to mention is that one of the load screens mentioned multiplayer but I can't find it in the switch port so goodness knows what happened to it!

@Kidfried Sorry I am behind but an excellent review - I have had Kentucky on my to play list for some time but this has really made me want it. I think I will wait till sales and get this on Switch since I can play in bed.

@RogerRoger Ohhh I have recently acquired this on my PC and have only played the first world. I am terrible at the gameplay but then I am terrible at 2d Sonic's. That said, I enjoyed the review.

Mirror's Edge: Catalyst (PS4)

First, a little bit of background on this review. At the start of lockdown this year, I bought a few PS3 titles online at a rather cheap price and had one of those was Mirror's Edge, a game that I had always wanted to play last gen but never quite got round to it. I didn't do full impressions but did put a few brief thoughts on another thread when I finished it. Overall, I enjoyed the game for what it was - it had aged, but it was a little different, had an interesting world/environment. It made me interested to play Catalyst but someone recommended I wait for a sale. Long story short - thanks to whoever it was that recommended that because it spent under £8 on it.

Mirror's Edge was a linear narrative story where you went from essentially level to level with story and exposition that explained your objectives. You used your parkour abilities to run through these levels with some combat mixed in (though was very much an aspect that was ignored). The replayability came from bettering times and redoing levels with challenges - this game is a staple amongst speed runners for obvious reasons and I can see the appeal.

Catalyst, on the other hand is that old adage - bigger is not always better. In fact, in this case, it is way worse. This game is open world, which on paper DOES sound like a natural evolution for this game. If the first game was about replaying it and finding your own quicker routes etc., why not have an open world where you are free to explore? Sounds great right?

The answer. Not so much. The world looks nice and at first, I was really liking the game. You could do missions, side missions, deliveries, timed races etc. There is lots to do. The problem though is that it gets old very quickly. Yes, the open world looks nice and opens up as you develop new abilities. However it isn't really open world - there are points where you HAVE to follow certain routes. Just through playing the campaign stories, you'll find yourself running the same routes over and over again. Now in theory, you could try and find new ways around where you are allowed to but ultimately, you are more than likely to just use the map assistant that directs you where to go. The main hub area that connects areas of the maps meant you are continuosly running through the same locales.

There is fast travel, but it comes part way through the game and you need to revisit your safe houses (which allow you to smart travel) manually before you can use it as a fast travel point. I quickly became bored of doing timed runs or even extra deliveries. Yes, these get you XP to upgrade abilities but these upgrades didn't make things seem much different so I just stopped doing them and focused on big side missions and the story missions. Even with just doing the story missions, you'll be retracing your steps over and over again. The problem is that the world is so similar to itself, you can't memorise the routes as they all look the same.

The campaign itself is probably about 8 ish hours and when playing the story missions the game is pretty good - it's ALMOST like playing the original. There are some good set pieces and the missions give focus. The story is OK but for some inexplicable reason, completely retcons almost every element of the first game for... well I don't know? They reworked several characters from the first game which makes this a reboot I suppose? I have no idea why. It's not like the original had some complicated lore or something that needed retconning.

A plus is that the character animations are really good, voice acting is pretty standard but it looks and sounds good overall. I had real issues with the combat and difficulty. The combat was my least favourite part of the original but this seemingly gives you less options but makes the enemies harder. One particular enemy set is so powerful that if they punch and connect, you go on your back and roll over (a very long animation) by which time the enemy has time to swing another punch. In the climax you fight two of these and twice i got caught in a loop of being punched between them and could not recover. In the end I defeated them by running around in circles for ten minutes and kicking one in the bottom any time I could sneak a swift foot in.

Apart from that, sometimes the traversal isn't perfect - again, this is most likely my skill but I just didn't have the interest to get better. I fell to my death a lot and if you want to get good scores in time trials you need to learn multiple routes that are not the one the map gives you and get every move perfect. I just didn't have the interest to do so. A lot of deaths feel unfair. However when it does work, it feels good and the movement is fast and performance is good on the whole.

The game ends with the expectation of a sequel - something I add, not as a spoiler, but a warning. I doubt EA will pay for another game given this one's reception (I believe it did not sell well).

If you liked the original then this might be worth a play but I'd recommend you focus on story missions and try to pretend it works like the original.

@RR529 Interesting thoughts on Trials of Mana there. The idea of choosing you party and main character is an interesting one, particularly as it changes the final boss. Did you just have the one run through or have you tried different characters? Is the story very specific to the people you choose or vague/generic enough that it will be fairly similar with different characters?

@RogerRoger GeneDrive and MegaSis sound like NES era Finally Fantasy enemies I find it funny that despite being a fan of the Blue One in the 16 bit era, I had no idea some of these games you describe even existed. It always feels weird to hear about Sonic games with anything other than fast flowing platforming (probably one of the reasons Sonic Forces felt so wrong to me) and playing as Robotnik himself seems even stranger!

@ralhdibny Nice little thoughts on DOOM 3 to go with what others have said. I haven't played the older games much but I like that old school enemies liked CyberDog are in the new games too. I hope you enjoy DOOM 2016!

@Rudy_Manchego I only played the demo of the original Mirrors Edge and thought it was a clever idea but wasn't sure it could carry a whole game. I can see that an open world should be great for this sort of game but cleverly designed, linear levels shouldn't be knocked; the Uncharted series has done pretty well out of the latter! I'm kind of surprised that more combat light parkour style games haven't been made, especially in VR.

@ralphdibny Nice. I can sympathize with not really getting to a game you own until it releases on the Switch, although, being kind of neurotic about money, I usually end up just playing it on the platform I own it on anyway.

The audio logs probably were intended to be listened to as you ran around the base, maybe to pad out the emptiness of it, but I'm not really good with multi-tasking, so I know it'd be distracting if I was trying to listen to some engineer cry about how scared he is as demons are ambushing me.

As to the flashlight, I'd have been OK if they'd made it an optional thing. They went the Nintendo route of forcing a change on the game without any option to alter it, though. I guess I could have modded it, but when I review a game, I obviously like to discuss it the way it's available to everyone.

I didn't find the game particularly scary now, but I don't feel bad admitting that it was pretty freaky when it first came out. Different time. Those "cyber-dogs" scared the crud out of me, especially.

Great thoughts! Glad you ended up enjoying it.

@Rudy_Manchego Nice review. I've never actually played either of the Mirror's Edge games, but I've seen plenty of footage, and, honestly, I can't imagine why any developer would think a first-person parkour platformer action thingy would make for a good open world title. It's a pity the new one is so inferior to the original. Maybe they'll remake the original with the improved visuals of the sequel at some point...

@Thrillho@Ralizah thanks!

Yeah I definitely agree an option about the flashlight would be welcome! I think I am about to become way more neurotic about money now that my income has dwindled so no more rebuying games for me!

To be fair I've found all of the first 4 doom games quite scary. Not sure what it is but maybe I just let myself be scared because it's more fun for me!

@ralphdibny Do you play horror games at all? Just allowing yourself to experience primal emotions without interrogating them is the entire fun of them. I still get pretty creeped out by stuff like REmake and Silent Hill at times.

I get a little too panicked when I can't fight back, though. It's the reason I'm not a huge fan of "run and hide" horror games where something is always chasing me.

@Ralizah I try not to but I've played a few this year such as REmake and Blair Witch. I did have a brief convo with KratosMD in the original game club thread how almost all of the games picked up to that point had some horror tinge to them even if they weren't supposed to be scary, either by association, iconography, themes, atmosphere, characters etc. It's almost inescapable as part of certain blockbuster games. I usually define a blockbuster film as having a combination of all genres and I guess it could be applied to games too.

I was just trying to think of something I've played this year that didn't delve into horror and my mind immediately went to uncharted but even the first two of those games had supernatural enemies toward the end.

Generally (and I know it's a bit shallow) I tend to play games in a series or by developers of that series that I've played as a kid and Doom falls into that category! I do play other games if I think they sound interesting too, I recently played Hellblade which I think at least partially falls into a horror genre because it deals with a personal disassociation with reality even if it's quite realistic in that sense.

It's funny because I don't really find horror films scary but games can be quite immersive in a way a film can't. The scariest films I've seen, to me at least, were Requiem for a Dream and Gone Girl. I know it's a bit random but they both kind of deal with your perceived reality slipping out from under you in different ways. I guess, because these particular films affected me so much, that this sort of thing is something I am scared of!