phantom_leo said:

Updated with Hyper Light Drifter!

Hey! Remember when I WASN'T finishing games this year?  

I want to play that, but at the same time I'm not sure it'll be that good of a game even though the story behind it is heartening.

updated by beaten games list

Yakuza 5  8/10

Thirty Flights of Loving 7/10

Halo 5 6.5/10

Rise of the Tomb Raider 9/10

Until Dawn 9/10

Walking Dead, The: Michonne 6.5/10

Uncharted 4: A Thief's End 9.5/10

Ratchet & Clank 7/10

Battlefield Hardline 8.5/10

Limbo 8/10

The Land Before Time Great Valley Racing Adventure 6/10

Castles 4/10

Beyond Eyes 1/10

This War of Mine 9/10

Inside 9.5/10

80 Days 6.5/10

Cibelle 5/10

55. Beat Uncharted 2 - Some of he action sequences are an absolute delight, and the stretch from after Jeff dies till you end up at the village is some genuinely badass shit, the convoy chase is a general highlight, the collapsing hotel is fun, and the game is surprisingly well tuned for Crushing. The game tends to let you have a lot of advantages in a lot of these stretches and the script is generally really good in terms of characterization and the banter between characters. There are some noteworthy misfires, the stuff with Lazarvic saying "we are the same" and blah blah is hilariously stupid for the game to even acknowledge, but it is what it is, the series is more National Treasure than Raiders of The Lost Ark. The gameplay is entirely dependent on its pacing and its encounter designs, because the core mechanics are less than emdiocre. The gunplay lacks oomph, the enemies do a poor job of selling, and I can't think of too many modern third person shooters, where I wouldn't take their core combat loop over what Uncharted 2 has. Even more deliberate systems have a level of satisfaction and synergy with what the goals of the game are (Human Revolution or what Quantum Break tries to do). So it's a testament to some of those spaces, that it overcomes what aren't good game mechanics. But the games filler really bugs me the opening of the game is a colossal bore, and the village to ice cave stretch is lame as shit. The mutant fuckers aren't really fun to fight, and the fact that a cross bow kills them is super fucking silly and arbitrary. In fact a lot of Shambala is just less interesting to play. The Lazarvich fight is actually okay for a boss fight in this series, maybe shooters have just lowered my bar for boss fights these days, but I was okay with it. All in all. - 7/10



56. Beat Uncharted 4

I enjoyed it for the most part. The combat and action has made significant improvements, the gunplay is a whisker away from being as good as Max Payne 3 (and Max Payne 3's shooting engine is the shit). From my understanding the stealth lets you mark targets or some shit, but I wouldn't know I played it on crushing and they take that shit away from you. Luckily the spaces are mostly well designed that the stealth is still plenty useful, and it plays into something I like about some of the combat in Tomb Raider 2013, done significantly better in Uncharted 4. It's guerilla tactics of slowly picking people apart, getting into the heat of things, breaking line of sight, and redo the loop to keep the action feeling dynamic. It's genuinely some of the best third person shooting I've ever played, my lone complaints for the combat

-There isn't enough of it


-The final boss is some dumb quick time event shit, fucking boring.


-30 frames per second, because of course.

The encounter design is ace, it goes without saying some of the set pieces are great like the convoy chase, but stuff like Scotland to this one part in Libertalia where you had the water to work with this like vertical broken down busted up building and balcony side shit were my favorite sequences in the game.

I'm also genuinely happy about the story, a lot of good character stuff. The script is as good as it's ever been, but with a softer touch and a character driven story which should be expected of Druckmann's direction. Knowing that he wrote the story with in response to devs doing insane crunches, yeah I get what he was going for, and I'd say he nails most of it. It's a great follow up to the story ideas that were presented in UC3, and done well this time (because Uncharted 3 botched every single one of its story ideas). Nate has a good understanding of how obsessed Sam is, but Nate is a bit softer, there is a warmth to Nolan's performance this time that really comes across both in the acting and in the dialogue. The exchanges between Sam and Nate are top notch.

Some minor crushing problems


-For the most part some of the sequences don't hold up very well on this difficulty. Just because of little aspects about how the game works, how many enemies and armored dudes it sends you, and how often your cover side is super shitty. The big one being this elevator thing with Elena that was just insufferable and bullshit. I bet it was really fun on the lower difficulties, because it looks fun, but fuck was it annoying on crushing.

-I also had to restart chapter 20 from chapter select so I could have guns with ammo in them. Because the last exchange before this is this tunnel where you got an armored shotgun guy and armored chainsniper guy, and your cover can be mowed down by chainsniper douche. So you really don't got much time to do much, so it's just get in your spot and unload on these fuckers. So you burn a lot of ammo, and the problem is I was left with 2 shells, and like half a clip in my uzi....and fuck doing that pirate ship fight that way. I was raging SO HARD during that part. Part of the issue is if it just allowed me to climb back up out of that tunnel to pick up the ammo from this earlier spot, I would have been fine in terms of weapons, but I wasn't. And it's something UC2 definitely does on Crushing. Not sure if it's a remaster only thing, but if you have gimped weapons or are lacking ammo, the game resets you with a grenade, a handgun, and an ak47. All of them with full clips.

-The game is really jewish with the ammo. Cut it the fuck out Naughty Dog. The Last of Us can be jewish with ammo, but in this? give me bullets.

-The chainsniper douche. Oh they can tell you it's just a fucking chaingun, but that shit is a sniper rifle with the range this mother fucker can pick you apart from. And he's got all that armor? Fuck him.

-The trophy is silver, um no no no, cut it the fuck out Naughty Dog. Hard mode is gold, it should always be gold, keep your collecting bullshit to yourself, aight fam? I beat your game on its hardest setting, you give me a fucking gold trophy damn it.

Back on point. And this is a matter of how much this will bother you, because the decision to do this stuff with the non combat stuff has merit. The idea behind quiet time is that it gives your action sequences weight and helps them stick out, if it was just constant action you get white noise. And for the most part it does, and the quality of the script makes the story a lot of fun. Beyond the obvious uncharted story complaints: cliche ridden, generic stuff, I'd say Rafe being uninteresting as a villain really doesn't matter, he's not really all that important to the story, the epilogue being the way it is, is a bit self indulgent in my opinion, but okay, kudos, and I'd say the Nadine arc is completely unearned, as her finish in the story is so fucking stupid. But the core things the story is built around, that shit it nails. And that's the core cast of Uncharted and Sam. Plus the pirate treasure stuff is rad, and it works nicely, because Treasure Island is a fun movie. Almost fun enough that I still kind of dig Treasure Planet.

Where I disagree the most with the game, and had majority of my issues, isn't the "pacing" because I think narratively speaking that shit is on point. It's everything you do in the down time, or at least most of it. Stuff like Nate's house, or scubadiving, has merit, because there is a juxtaposition with how it plays with the rest of the story. I don't have a problem with the driving in madagascar or even the boat ride itself, as it adds to the atmosphere I guess.

But the fucking climbing got on my nerves in this game more so than what I played in UC2. I dislike opening the way UC2 does, and the ice cave stretch, and that's how I feel about a lot of this climbing in UC4. You do so fucking much of it, and it's all boring. The game might take the peaks and valleys thing a bit too far with the valleys, because it's so much doing basically nothing. Your interactions in these sequences aren't satisfying, interesting, compelling, rewarding, or fun, or anything. They are just the usual brand of move stick forward, and follow the texture the dev wants you to go with. There is always this jarring bullshit where the game arbitrarily decides "no we can't boost, that's too high"...and it's not even that high compared to other shit? Or get this fucking crate on wheels, and fuck man that elevator wouldn't work unless I did some climbing shit, after the driving shit I had to do and I was like BRAH!!....i rather fucking do see-saw puzzles in Half Life, and I hate them shits.

I hate cinematic walking,  It makes me a bit indifferent towards what was a mostly well written flashback late in the game.

The opening of the game from an interaction standpoint is so fucking boring. Iits a shame because the story constantly maintains momentum, but as a player I am mostly just going through the motions, with barely anything interesting to do, so in return the gameplay kills any momentum. It's made less acceptable to me, because late in the game it actually had this neat little stretch with the slides, and the hook, and the spike, that you had to use in succession and it was still pretty rudimentary but it was a more interesting use of that climbing than any other shit I ever did. Because using it all in succession gave it a kinetic feeling, but it's like an opening level type thing. It's the type of shit a proper platformer or adventure game would expand upon as the game went on. But no, we gotta do the same ol shit for 95% of the experience. That shit bored me so much, that I started digging Uncharted puzzles. And part of that is because some slight improvements have been made, but really because it's at least a game during those stretches.

When the game is being a shooter? I love it. The story? Naughty Dog's 2nd best outing, which isn't that bad because 2 is fun, and The Last of Us is legit (shush Tomas). The in-between straight up not a fan. Overall dig the game, might like it more than Uncharted 2, because the combat is so improved, but I might prefer 2's more bombastic nature in terms of its gameplay. Prefer The Last of Us, and would be totally cool if we never see another Uncharted game again. - 7/10

Just finished Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2. Such an excellent game. Nice variety of stages, cool enemy and boss designs, nice music and sound effects, a number of really fun weapons to use, great combat mechanics, and it's still a pretty good looking game. It's a shame that there is a bit of cheapness here and there in the game otherwise this would probably be a perfect action game. 9 out of 10.

57. Beat Until Dawn - 6/10


Outside of the branching paths stuff, the rest of the playing it is whatever, it's more like a long play move, which has its results, I generally give a shit that my homegirl Emily died on my playthrough but shitty ass Chris and Matt lived. That thundercunt was my favorite character. Anyway the rest of the interactions are whatever, and choose your own adventure shtick or not, it's not much of a game, and when you put all that many eggs in the narrative basket I give more of a shit when the narrative is good. And while I dig 80s slasher flicks, I like them the way I like Bad Boys 2. Horrible movie, but tons of badass scenes and the reggie scene that makes it fun inspite of how trashy it is. And that's how I feel about Until Dawn, it's not good, it's not even structurally well made, but it's endearing because it's just so campy, but it's playing it pretty seriously and the studio actually thinks they are making this suspenseful horror thing, and it totally isn't that lol. For whatever reason I thought this was more satirical in nature going in, kind of like Scream or what Cabin in the Woods is, but it's not, it's just a slasher flick until the plot twist happens and it goes another direction. So it's just good ol fashioned dumb. But it's my kind of dumb.

58. Beat Invisible Inc. - 7/10

Game is the tits.


59. Beat Destiny: Rise of Iron - 4/10

Game is shit.

Just finished Forza Horizon. What do you get when you take the meticulously crafted cars and excellent driving mechanics from the Forza games and plunk them down in a very scenic and open world backdrop? You get a pretty damn fun game is what you get. 8.5 out of 10.

phantom_leo said:

Updated with Axiom Verge. When a game brings to mind such classics as Metroid, Contra, Ghouls and Ghosts, Rygar, Bionic Commando and even such obscure games as Alisia Dragoon, you know it's GOT to be good!

In my opinion one of the BEST Metroid games since Super!  

You know what's one of the best metroid games since super, AM2R.

phantom_leo said:

Updated with (finally) Resident Evil 4.

Every bit as genre-defining as I thought it would be. Supremely playable, even in this day and age.

Over-stays it's welcome a tiny bit, but it's still compelling enough to complete!

Happy Vader?

Absolutely!

60. Beat Gears of War: Ultimate Edition - 7/10

So yeah Gears of War 1 still a pretty good game to go back to. Largely because I've always dug the core of what Gears of War as a video game, is there a stiffness to it? Damn right there is, but the shooting is nice and crunchy, the guns are fun to use, and the gibs basically never get boring. The locus in general are mostly fun to fight, if a bit too dumb. But the game takes a very basic concept of cover shooting, and explores it for all its worth with different set ups through out the game. Using stretches where you gotta stay in the light, the criss crossing levels for broop, circular arenas where you gotta hold your ground, I genuinely like the emergence hole mechanic and felt it never should have been dropped, little things like the seeders, shit like the wretches give you a chance to actually use the shotgun. All good stuff. Even the gimmick stuff like the UAV light car thing didn't hold me down, it's fairly simple and more than manageable even on solo play.

What the game lacks in pure spectacle of any of its major contemporaries of that gen (Uncharted's set pieces for instance) it more than makes up for by having wildly superior moment to moment action to any tps from last gen that isn't Vanquish and Max Payne 3 as they have stronger combat systems. Maybe RE5 is also better, as RE4's combat is ace as fuck in mercenariesI didn't even really hate Phil's favorite part: The lambent wretches. Also maybe it's a product of absence making the heart grow fonder, but I always loved the cheesy gears cast. Especially when they aren't super serious like the sequels.

Some of the one liners in this game are rad, and John Dimaggio as Marcus Fenix is too good for this world. Baird's it's a fucking party down here line still cracks me up, and it brought me back to my freshmen year of college. Which is usually how I prefer to play Gears of War, is usually with a buddy, and in broop.

That said, while visuals don't bother me too much these days (especially since Ultimate Edition, and the PC version doesn't have performance issues for me).

-The checkpoints are universally shitty in gears

-The AI is dumb as bricks. Both sides, the Boomers you just cheese.

-Uncharted's vertical elements lend that series to more interesting combat encounter spaces as shown by its sequel, versus what's happened to gears

-As much as I like the characters, they are paper thin. They are fun in a Bad Boys way, not in a they are actually good way like the Binary Domain cast.

-The entire DLC segment, sans The Brumack fight is pretty trash.

-The Corpser is trash, it's borderline laughable.

-The 3rd Berserk fight is laughable, it probably works on the first playthrough, but on the 2nd playthrough you kind of realize how anticlimactic it makes it all feel.

All in all I still think it's a good game, I think it and the franchises status as this supremely excellent game is a bit much, but I probably say that about a lot of things, inb4 hipster. I probably consider the first one the best, but I really like the variety in the 2nd game. Don't care for the campaign in Gears 3. But love the mp a lot in Gears 3. Anyway onto finishing Silent Hill 2 again.