Forum > Gaming Discussion > Completed Games of 2023: Because we're getting old and we forget quickly if we don't write it down
Completed Games of 2023: Because we're getting old and we forget quickly if we don't write it down
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Wed, 07 Jun 2023 12:43:36
Gagan said:

That take is bad too, but also I know you probably played with Aarny. So I'm willing to blame the Irish for your take, and not Australia this time. I'm going to write it off as you've never played Left 4 Dead.

He's a solid L4Der. Maybe the original is great? 2 is straight trash. Shit game, fun with friends, though.

Edited: Wed, 07 Jun 2023 12:45:21

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Thu, 08 Jun 2023 03:02:53
Dvader said:

I don't agree. I never played L4D fully but enough to get the jist, it's pretty one note and the enemy variety isn't great. Now they all serve their own purpose as you describe but it's limited. There are no real bosses in those games. I much rather play the game with lots of variety, bosses, varied levels with puzzle like elements to them too. That oil rig, have you ever sped run it in coop, the two players need to be in sync and having to dodge and manipulate the chainsaw guys on their own. From a huge swamp to explore with gators and optional areas to fight through to an underground temple with moving parts and a giant bat boss. The game is as non stop as RE4 and the mechanics are still about the same if not better with the better melee attacks, I much rather play the RE4 style than a run and gun L4D spray bullets kind of game. That's preference though.

Variety would mean something if the enemy types are good. the gators are straight up jobbers, ditto boss fights. Now it's not like Resi games have ever had an actual good boss fight, as the series is straight jobbers in that department, and I won't make the argument that they should be dropped. But they aren't selling point, variety for the sake of it is worth 0 to me. The scenarios themselves need to be good. I'm a Half Life 2 hater for instance, and that game is varied as hell. RE4's variety I'm into because it's a string of some of the best encounters ever, bested only by Resident Evil 4.



Being like RE4 is not the same as being RE4, in RE5's case it's a lot more uneven and meandering with its encounters. Waiting for a Sun beam to pass by, before i can move to a spot isn't exactly building the same thrilling scenario as the cabin, or the 2 claw dudes, or claw dude in a cage, or the catapult segment.



L4D enemies are also mixed better in encounters, conversly 5 (and tbf I can make this criticism of RE4 as well, especially during the village) is a lot less willing to mix its best enemies with its smaller enemiies, and if we're judging shit as a coop game. Towers can downplay to his heart's content, but one cat can't carry the whole 4 to the promise land by the end on the higher difficulty. When a teammate gets tagged or grabbed, their only out is a teammate saving them. In theory 5 and 6 work that way, in theory. In actuality enemy grabs or moves like that are brain dead simple to avoid, conversly Left 4 Dead you're already dealing with swarms, and given the speed at which enemies move, less practical to expect one cat to just avoid every hunter, boomer, smoker. Much less when a Tank gets involved. So indepdent of preference, judging them on their merits as coop games, it's not providing anything nearly as sensible for that sort of play as another game from its own year. Conversly both of you can afford to be a lot more aggressive and wreckless, without giving a shit about the other. You barely have to worry about friendly fire, you both are hyper competent as fuck.



I too like RE4 more than Left 4 Dead, I like RE4 a shit load more than a lot of games (every game). RE5 is a dramatic drop off from that. Mercs is fun in RE5 tho, borderline saves the game from entering below good territory.

Edited: Thu, 08 Jun 2023 07:02:42

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Thu, 08 Jun 2023 11:06:36

If all it's got going for it is that a teammate has to revive you, I don't even need to downplay it lol.

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Fri, 09 Jun 2023 02:17:22
Foolz said:

If all it's got going for it is that a teammate has to revive you, I don't even need to downplay it lol.

Was that the only thing I said? You can't mow just everyone down yolo, simply put your out numbered, healing requires you to actually be vulnerable the whole time you're doing it, and you can only carry one health pack (two healthpacks?) and 1 ting of painkillers. Push block is only gonna get so many zombies off you, and it's not just revive. It's grabbed my guy, you have enemy types that actually punish you for not sticking in your group or having decent teammates to protect you while doing their end of the bargain. Resi 5 by comparison is just a bunch of enemies made for a singular opponent that can't really handle multiple targets. They don't have the volume of enemies on the screen to compensate, nor are the arenas condusive to any sort of interesting play built around coop. At best it does the gears of war shit where the game directly forces one person to go X way, and the other person goes Y way. But these are brief moments in a larger game.

I could see the argument against Left 4 Dead's core interaction being dull, but the notion that it doesnt' have anything going on specifically around being a coop game wouldn't hold under any scrutiny.

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Fri, 09 Jun 2023 07:30:40

The thing is, none of that matters if the core interaction is shit, and the enemies (that's definitely one thing it does have going for it) and mechanics (don't think they're as good as you're making out, but I wouldn't shit on them) are in such awfully designed levels. So many of them end with some shitty funnel or other lame way of condensing enemies, which actually takes away from the good things about the variety, that really shines in the more open parts.

Edited: Fri, 09 Jun 2023 07:32:24

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Fri, 09 Jun 2023 08:50:32
Gagan said:

Variety would mean something if the enemy types are good. the gators are straight up jobbers, ditto boss fights. Now it's not like Resi games have ever had an actual good boss fight, as the series is straight jobbers in that department, and I won't make the argument that they should be dropped. But they aren't selling point, variety for the sake of it is worth 0 to me. The scenarios themselves need to be good. I'm a Half Life 2 hater for instance, and that game is varied as hell. RE4's variety I'm into because it's a string of some of the best encounters ever, bested only by Resident Evil 4.




Being like RE4 is not the same as being RE4, in RE5's case it's a lot more uneven and meandering with its encounters. Waiting for a Sun beam to pass by, before i can move to a spot isn't exactly building the same thrilling scenario as the cabin, or the 2 claw dudes, or claw dude in a cage, or the catapult segment.




L4D enemies are also mixed better in encounters, conversly 5 (and tbf I can make this criticism of RE4 as well, especially during the village) is a lot less willing to mix its best enemies with its smaller enemiies, and if we're judging shit as a coop game. Towers can downplay to his heart's content, but one cat can't carry the whole 4 to the promise land by the end on the higher difficulty. When a teammate gets tagged or grabbed, their only out is a teammate saving them. In theory 5 and 6 work that way, in theory. In actuality enemy grabs or moves like that are brain dead simple to avoid, conversly Left 4 Dead you're already dealing with swarms, and given the speed at which enemies move, less practical to expect one cat to just avoid every hunter, boomer, smoker. Much less when a Tank gets involved. So indepdent of preference, judging them on their merits as coop games, it's not providing anything nearly as sensible for that sort of play as another game from its own year. Conversly both of you can afford to be a lot more aggressive and wreckless, without giving a shit about the other. You barely have to worry about friendly fire, you both are hyper competent as fuck.




I too like RE4 more than Left 4 Dead, I like RE4 a shit load more than a lot of games (every game). RE5 is a dramatic drop off from that. Mercs is fun in RE5 tho, borderline saves the game from entering below good territory.

L4D and RE5 are pretty different kinds of coop shooters so I'm not going to defend one over the other. L4D has classes so there is a whole dynamic in the way the team is built and operates together that RE5 doesn't have. You seem to really love the encounter design if RE4, it's the best of all time for me, but I also love RE4 mechanically, that style of over the shoulder in your face shooting is so much better than any run and gun shooter to me. I don't care for cover shooters as much, that gears style. I enjoy Uncharted cause it does much more than just the cover shooting part with some platforming kills, melee and some stealth, but the cover shooting part eh. Run and spray games like L4D, or these WWZ coop shooters, ehhh the act of shooting looses its impact when it's a mob of targets.

RE4 and RE5 as well mechanically are pretty identical and that every shot matters, that in your face use a shot to stun to melee kind of gameplay I LOVE. yes clearly RE5 encounter design is not as good as RE4 but I don't think it's some massive drop off. The game is still an absolute blast to play and I still find those varied encounters and scenarios to be better than what most shooters care to do. RE6 is what I would consider a mess in terms of the encounter design, that's a major step down, but the action was actually really cool and unique in that one.

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Fri, 09 Jun 2023 17:34:00
+1
Stardew Valley is completed once again. Or more accurately, I've reached the 2-year mark where your grandfather's ghost comes back and either says, "good job favorite grandchild" or "keep trying you piece of crap."

This time around took me almost 70 hours, which is the longest of my three playthroughs. That's largely due to all the additional content and story they keep adding. There's also tons I still haven't scratched the surface of. I know I'll return to the game at least one more time for a full playthrough, so maybe then I'll really invest time into all the post-release content.
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Sat, 10 Jun 2023 02:30:04
+2

Your stupid ass forum AND ITS FUCKING SECURITY CREDENTIALS!!!

im not writing that shit up again. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/780114641598021632/1088326374579765289/image.png

But really bro, every shot counts? really? this is me on prof btw

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Sat, 10 Jun 2023 07:37:31

Just copy and paste next time. It is a pain, though.

Yeah, when I played RE4 for the first time on Wii, I thought maybe I had so much shit because aiming was easier compared to with a controller. But no, turns out there really isn't a dearth of resources at all.  LOL

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Tue, 13 Jun 2023 06:22:21
Gagan said:

Your stupid ass forum AND ITS FUCKING SECURITY CREDENTIALS!!!

im not writing that shit up again. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/780114641598021632/1088326374579765289/image.png

But really bro, every shot counts? really? this is me on prof btw

It's not a spray bullets game, aiming and making your shot count to stun or disarm an enemy is key. It doesn't matter how much ammo you have. Every shot should hit an important part. Hit the head and stun. Shoot a leg to drop them, shoot the weak spot on the garrador, shoot the axe out of the air. Many shooters especially L4D you just aim at a general spot and hold a button down and spray bullets like it's water. RE4 is all about positioning, aiming and taking strategic shots at enemies. It's why it's the great TPS of all time, that and the encounter design.

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Tue, 20 Jun 2023 23:19:27
+1
Finished up Yakuza 0 this afternoon and wow that was insanely fun. It was super over the top in all the best ways, but it didn't go as batshit crazy as Judgement.

I'm really tempted to try out some of the others in the series to continue the story, but 0 seems to be considered the best in the series. Still, I'll give Like a Dragon a chance later in the year since it's still sitting on my shelf. Just need a pallet cleanser before I revisit the world of seedy Japanese crime.
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Thu, 22 Jun 2023 00:55:11

Just finished Spider-Man Remastered and what a damn fine game it was. Combat was quite fun and traversal felt fantastic. Some very cool boss fights. Story was pretty good as well. Am very much looking forward to the upcoming sequel.

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Tue, 27 Jun 2023 15:01:11

I just finished Link's Awakening. I now prefer the newer Zelda games, but it sure is fun to return to the top down dungeon exploring ways of old Zelda. Those last three dungeons were quite the head scratchers.

Edited: Tue, 27 Jun 2023 15:01:57
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Tue, 27 Jun 2023 16:46:06
I hope Nintendo will do with Zelda like they do with Mario, and keep making new Zelda games of both old and new styles.

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Sat, 01 Jul 2023 01:41:43
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Dvader said:

It's not a spray bullets game, aiming and making your shot count to stun or disarm an enemy is key. It doesn't matter how much ammo you have. Every shot should hit an important part. Hit the head and stun. Shoot a leg to drop them, shoot the weak spot on the garrador, shoot the axe out of the air. Many shooters especially L4D you just aim at a general spot and hold a button down and spray bullets like it's water. RE4 is all about positioning, aiming and taking strategic shots at enemies. It's why it's the great TPS of all time, that and the encounter design.

What are you talking about bro?


In Left 4 Dead's highest difficulty friendly fire is on, and you do a ridiculous amount of damage to your own teammates. So this spray n pray without care isn't really it, and considering you aren't just getting ammo for every other kill, you do actually run out of ammo or light on ammo for some of your guns till the next ammo spot. Being forced to either switch to your pistol, or melee weapon. In Resi 4, you get a one tap to the face, round house kick, and then you can knife them to death. And this is your optimal decision because it conserves ammo, does more than enough damage to get kills on professional, and the knife itself can stun lock for you once they get up. Suplexes n mule kicks do more damage on top of that, and as stated each kill gives you a decent shot at getting more ammo. There is no resource management to Resi 4, you get too much of it.


RE5 hella doesn't correct that, as it only really ruins your leg stuns and the knifes stunlock. But the constant ammo, the quick reload, the strong crowd control melee option all but keeps the resource management stuff a non factor in action resi. If we're talking positioning, not exactly a non factor in left 4 dead where you are dealing with a large flood of regular zombies, with special zombies thrown in and getting surrounded doesn't have a get out of jail free card.

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Sat, 01 Jul 2023 05:44:39
+1

Friendly fire really wasn't even close to being an issue in my experience. It's not exactly hard to differentiate between the zombie hordes and your teammates.

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Sat, 01 Jul 2023 06:14:33
+1
Foolz said:

Friendly fire really wasn't even close to being an issue in my experience. It's not exactly hard to differentiate between the zombie hordes and your teammates.

No shit the game has clear as day visuals, but acting like you're just spraying n praying would be false too. Acting like positioning and communication isn't a factor is not exactly optimal now is it? Certainly not if the bar for 'you have to make your shots count" is the action game where you get an instant stun for one tap to the dome and a contextual attack that is so strong at crowd control it not only knocks enemies away, but knocks them all down the ground unable to attack you for a few seconds. Get the gist?


In Resi, the other coop game, you don't even have to worry about friendly fire. So explosives, machine guns, you just wanna go yolo? Go for it.

Edited: Sat, 01 Jul 2023 06:16:18

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Sat, 01 Jul 2023 06:27:14
+1
Gagan said:

No shit the game has clear as day visuals, but acting like you're just spraying n praying would be false too. Acting like positioning and communication isn't a factor is not exactly optimal now is it? Certainly not if the bar for 'you have to make your shots count" is the action game where you get an instant stun for one tap to the dome and a contextual attack that is so strong at crowd control it not only knocks enemies away, but knocks them all down the ground unable to attack you for a few seconds. Get the gist?



In Resi, the other coop game, you don't even have to worry about friendly fire. So explosives, machine guns, you just wanna go yolo? Go for it.

Acting like there's any difficutly in not shooting your team mates is misleading, though. If you're punished for it, it really doesn't matter if it never actually happens.

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Sun, 02 Jul 2023 03:33:34
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Foolz said:

Acting like there's any difficutly in not shooting your team mates is misleading, though. If you're punished for it, it really doesn't matter if it never actually happens.

.............okay.........sir, in a direct comparison. Where we are arguing "you gotta make every shot count" and we're talking about "positioning" right?




The fact that friendly fire is an actual concern. Has merit, regardless of how consistently avoidable it is. To act like there is no punishment for being a twit with your bullets is silly, you're just arguing to argue at that point. And im getting to the point where imma need to see the receipts. We can get a crew for left 4 dead 2, we'll run it on expert, and I better not get by shot by you once. Because in that game it's actually pretty easy to be surrounded by zombies, and needing to free up your friends, and in those situations, fairly easy to tag your boy if you're being careless. Which is the argument point right, that in Resi 5 that you gotta make your shots count...........you ignoring that you get bullets for kills, get health for kills, deal with largely slower moving enemies who can be stunned and the resulting melee action both knocks that enemy down, and the enemies in the area (which is strong crowd control).




Like yes by itself, its easy in any game to not hit your teammate, but the existence of it does dicatate what you can't do at the least. That element not being even in coop Resi, is a factor, i can literally throw a hand grenade around my coop mate if they have enemies around them and it means nothing. It's just gonna kill the enemies. I throw a moly at you, and you are also getting cooked for my decision. It's not just about you not shooting them, it's them also avoiding situations where they get themselves shot.




Now if that warrants an argument from you sir, show me you doing it. It would be a better time to fire up a game, than to argue a vader take. If the argument is that RE4 combat is deeper combat, and by extension that RE5 is deeper mechanically as a shooter. I got no actual disagreement with that statement, there is a reason RE4 is my pick for GOAT. But RE5 does more to take things away from RE4's stellar systems, while also being a huge step down in encounters. And its coop factor is less interesting by comparison. That game is all but saved by mercenaries for me, much like RE6.

Edited: Sun, 02 Jul 2023 03:47:39

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Sun, 02 Jul 2023 08:47:10

Hey play nice you two.

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