Jump to content

rjkclarke's Carnival of Diamonds and Rust


rjkclarke

Recommended Posts

9 hours ago, Bittersweet said:

Most excellent reviews on Drakengard and NieR, cheers to you~

 

Thank you!!

 

Looking at your username, I would say you are a fan of those games too so its always great to interact with more people that love the NieR/Drakengard universe.

 

I'm glad you enjoyed the reviews, I'm looking forward to the day I get around to reviewing the original NieR, but also really dreading how large that review is going to end up being, even taking spoilers out of the equation - that whole universe has so many avenues I want to delve into whenever I get to it.

Edited by rjkclarke
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Semi update time I suppose, I've re-edited  the NieR: Automata review a little bit, not drastically or anything. Just a few grammar and punctuation mistakes. That probably tells me I ought to get more sleep, so that I'm not so dog tired when writing them, because some of my punctuation sometimes is super naff, it really bugs me. I should be able to get the platinum in Manual Samuel tomorrow, so long as some of those time trials don't batter me too much. So I'll try and get a review of that out if I can.

 

I haven't changed anything else in the NieR: Automata review though, the content is still the same, I'm keeping in my thoughts on the "Trophy Shop." Although, thanks to some enlightening and insightful words from @DrBloodmoney my perspective has somewhat changed on that, so again I'd like to say thanks for those. I don't feel like I need to change them in the review -  because my reply a bit underneath the NieR: Automata review, illustrates my newer thoughts on it quite well I think.

 

I think I'm going to paste in all of the reviews I've written in the Most Recent Platinum threads at some point, because I want to have them all in one singular place, I was thinking about just linking to them in the first post, but having them all here will mean I can edit out all the glaring grammar and punctuation errors I've made and just forgotten about. I won't do it all at once though, because that would be unfair to keep rapidly posting just for the sake of getting some  reviews into the thread, I'll just throw them in occasionally I think, so they will all make their way here at some point.

 

Here's one now..

 

Assassin's Creed II Review

LH06eb6f.jpg

 

Platinum #307

Assassin's Creed II (PS3)

 

L55839b.png

 

1Ledd3c0.png

 

Master Assassin

Unlock all trophies.

 

A Few Trophy Stats

 

Platinum Earned - 23 February 2021: 3:29:59 PM

Time Taken to Platinum :  3 days, 16 hours, 48 minutes

Platinum Rarity  - 24.14%

Trophy Number - #14,967

 

Orignally Written: 23 February 2021

 

 

 

This one is probably going to seem very strange to some people, I know so many people who have ACII as the first platinum they ever earned, whereas it is my 307th, still I'm happy to join the list of 170,000+ platinum achievers. It isn't like I haven't played any other AC games either, there is sort of a story to why I got around to this very recently. I actually played ACII originally pretty much when it came out on the Xbox360, which I haven't touched in years, because the disc tray messed up on it, as has every other Xbox console I've ever owned strangely, but that isn't the point, it would be too easy to ramble about that haha.

 

So basically the first AC game I played on PS3 was actually Brotherhood, which I need to get round to getting the platinum on at some point, I did everything else except the multiplayer way back in 2011.I really like ACII though, but at the time I didn't really want to pick it up and play through it again on a different platform, so I just put it off and put it off, probably for the same reason I've never stacked any games on my profile, it isn't like I'm against the idea, I just get put off by the prospect of having to do the same thing all over again, even if it is something I really enjoyed, I would be a little bit worried, that I would  maybe lack motivation and my enjoyment and fondness for that game might get somewhat diminished.

 

I won't mention anything about the story, because anybody who has played it will know just how good it is, but for any people that haven't and have often wondered why Assassin's Creed became the huge franchise that it is, it is down to this game, so do yourself a favour and pick this or the Ezio collection up, even playing it in 2021 it still holds up very well. I guess as classics often do. It does make me want take a couple more trips down memory lane for a few platinum's. For a game that is over ten years old it looks great too even on a PS3, with a very memorable soundtrack. Not quite as memorable as Brotherhood's but that does take some beating to be fair.

 

As far as gameplay goes though the last AC games that I actually played were Origins and then a little dip into the DLC for Black Flag at some point last year. So it was definitely a bit of a shock going back to ACII and not being able to do quite a lot of things you could do in Black Flag and other games that I was sure you could still do in this but you couldn't, which made the combat feel a little clunky. I can't rag on the game for that though I have to judge by when it came out, and I remember at the time thinking they were quite big leaps compared to what the original AC was like.

 

Still, getting to grips with the combat did make me think of that nice green swamp dwelling tennis ball from Star Wars and his words of wisdom       " You must Unlearn what you have learned"    just like Yoda said, this was pretty much the case. I didn't mind though. I pretty much enjoyed the game all the way through, which is probably why more than 170,000 + people have achieved the platinum.  So, in a way leaving it for ten plus years was probably not a bad thing. It is quite easy to dig into modern Ubisoft for having meaningless side content and collectibles but I do think in this game they at least do have somewhat of a story justification, plus some of those Glyph puzzles are super fun. I didn't even mind collecting the feathers again, for the In memory of a certain character I won't mention for spoiler purposes trophy haha (wish they appeared on the map though). As a side note on that character I really think he looks like Mrs Ladybird from the Henry Selick James and the Giant Peach film, or at least some kind of beetle, kept making me chuckle unfortunately.

 

All in all though, it was a very fun time all the way through and ACII stands up really well as one of the very best in the series, it has been said so many times at this point, but Ezio really was such  a great memorable character. I can totally see why so many people got hooked on trophy hunting due to this game. It does have a bit of everything, which is always nice. That platinum tile is awesome as well. I always like it when they stand out like that in such a unique way.

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

I'll draw a line under it for now, upon reading it, it is a bit vague for my liking, but I remember at the time thinking that most people have probably played it anyway.So it isn't like I would be adding anything particularly new to the conversation, I think that's why I spoke more about my own personal experiences with the game than anything else. Its here now though, so if I want to change/rewrite anything I suppose I can.

 

 

 

Edited by rjkclarke
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Awesome, some more progress at last. That's one less thing in my backlog with Manual Samuel being finished. I'll drop my thoughts on it below. I'm not quite sure what to tackle out of my backlog next. I'm thinking of trying to trick my subconscious haha  and play some of the shorter games I have on there so I feel like I'm making more progress, but that is probably ultimately a stupid idea!!

 

Manual Samuel Review

LH575bd4.jpg

Platinum #319

Manual Samuel (PS4)

L8b790c.png

 

1L128266.png

 

HOLY FECES!

Unlock all the Trophies in Manual Samuel.

 

A Few Trophy Stats

 

Platinum Earned - 7 May 2021: 7:46:07 PM

Time Taken to Platinum :  1 day, 14 hours, 50 minutes

Platinum Rarity  - 12.63%

Trophy Number - #15,434

 

 

Manual Samuel might be a hard one for me to talk about. It isn't that its bad or anything like that, its more the fact that this game is so unique - so it becomes a little difficult to really compare or even contrast it with something else. The closest thing I can think of is QWOP; if anyone is unfamiliar I'll leave a link here to a Rooster Teeth video, made about it years ago. Manual Samuel itself though is VERY different from your usual video game, I suppose you could make a fleeting comparison to Octodad as well from what I've seen of gameplay footage of that. I've personally not played it.

 

The actual gameplay itself is very interesting. Almost all of the controller's buttons end up being assigned a specific part of Sam's movement, you'd think this would lead to some really messy and confusing gameplay, but its actually very rhythmic. Weirdly I found myself twitching my leg muscles in time with the character walking, to the point where I started to get cramp at one point, strange what that does to your brain. Actually I can think of one thing to slightly compare it to, but in a fairly off key way I suppose  and that is David Cage games. He seems to be under the impression that most people who play video games also have extra digits or limbs. I mean some of the weird button combinations you are asked to sequentially press in those games are ludicrous sometimes. Manual Samuel does at least succeed really well at that element, wherein all the button presses make sense and are pretty much doable once you get the knack of it. Thank goodness too, because otherwise those time trials you have to do for the platinum would have been even more of a nightmare.

 

I'm not sure I can say Manual Samuel has an entirely unique art style, its highly stylised yes, but not necessarily particularly unique. I'm not sure if it was deliberate but aspects of it reminded me of a high budget mid 00's Flash Animation. I think its a little similar to the art style that Daedalic Entertainment uses, which definitely does have its charm. I'm quite fond of it myself. I can't really mention anything about the games Sound Design or anything of that nature, because I didn't notice a single thing about it.

 

The story is one of the area's where this game really shines, its very funny and the games physics themselves just adds to  that humour. The narration throughout the game is particularly funny. I don't think its as funny as the writers clearly think it is though. I think you hear the word FECES in this game at least a hundred times. I'm not being a sourpuss either, the word by itself is just not that funny. and they really REALLY want you to laugh every time Death says "Oh HOLY FECES", or "OH FECES" I think by its overuse it sort of loses any power to be funny after a while. Death himself, is a fairly annoying character, but I think that's deliberate so it does seem to be quite well realised. All of the characters themselves are quite memorable considering how short the game is. Due to the fact it is short though, I can't really mention a whole lot else without actually diving into plot details, which I never like to do in case people want to remain spoiler free.

 

Manual Samuel is one of those games where going for the trophies can and does really enhance the experience, because you get to see some of the weird alternate dialogue paths and strange detours that can happen if you do things a slightly different way, doing a task badly for example. Ultimately you end up seeing lots of funny and unusual things when trying to collect all of the games collectibles the hashtags. There are a few time trial trophies here, which to be perfectly honest aren't that hard apart from one or two; once you get used to how odd but satisfying the control scheme is. I laughed out loud several times doing one of two of them - especially the ones that involve staircases, because to go faster the fastest option is to just throw yourself down the stairs and the way you tumble is pretty hilarious.

 

You have to do two playthroughs which might put some people off, but one of them has to be done Co-Op so to be honest I'd grab a friend to do it if you can because you'd probably have a really good time. (I couldn't because here in the UK at least where I am we still can't go inside other peoples houses.) There are unique lines of dialogue the narrator dishes out too, which dig the player out for skipping the cutscenes that actually do make a second playthrough just as funny. Another unique element to the Co-Op is that you can assign who controls what button so you could really shake it up by having one person control one leg and one arm etc, any sort of shambolic combination would probably end up being a fun time. I think the trophies definitely make the most of everything in the game which is always a plus I think.

 

This isn't the easiest game in the world to recommend, its definitely good, maybe even great but I could imagine some people would just immediately go NOPE when faced with the really bizarre controls. I had a really fun time with it, but I also had no expectations going into it. I always like when a game can pleasantly surprise you like that. I don't actually know how I even got the game, I'm fairly sure it was in an indie bundle that I bought years ago to get a different game, but I can happily say I'm glad that I played it, it was a pretty enjoyable eight or so hours and despite the whole FECES thing it never outstayed its welcome in that time.

 

Edited by rjkclarke
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh no, I've done a silly thing... Something  I'm sure that we all have done with a large backlog and that is add to it. I've started Gravel, something I probably will just play casually every time I want to chill out and listen to some music or a podcast because it hasn't particularly got much story to it, so I can just turn the volume down and relax. I also picked up Peaky Blinders: Mastermind in a recent sale and forgot about it, so I'll add those to the opening post later. I was planning to play a few stelth games soon anyway, so I think I'll try out Peaky Blinders once I start those.

 

Whilst I'm writing here I might as well paste one of my older reviews I've already written into here, so they are all eventually in one place, I just don't want to clog this thread up with loads of these so I'm still trying to space them apart by at least a day or so. Once they all make their way here I don't have to worry about them again though unless I want to edit them. I suppose I should have pasted them in here earlier. But once I can get back on track with some classic reviews that will be  a positive. I've got a couple of ideas for what the next one might be

The Technomancer Review

LH8d8eae.jpg

Platinum # 304

The Technomancer (PS4)

 

L9afec1.png

 

1La0ac6b.png

Platinum trophy

Win all the trophies in The Technomancer

 

A Few Trophy Stats

 

Platinum Earned - 13 February 2021: 11:02:43 PM

Time Taken to Platinum :  5 days, 17 hours, 33 minutes

Platinum Rarity  - 3.63%

Trophy Number - #14,866

 

Originally Written: February 14 2021

 

 

I'm not too sure exactly where to start with this one. I will say this game is thoroughly underappreciated I think. It is by no means the best game ever but it is quite good for what it is. Although, really I suppose the game just doesn't really get talked about that much in general. It does feel perhaps outdated by at least one console generation. Still think it could be considered a hidden gem though. I think people might think of this more favourably had it come out in say 2011 instead of 2016. It definitely does lack a few quality of life features that most people would expect from an RPG, like  fast travel, especially in a game like this where you are constantly going from place to place picking up and completing quests on a regular basis, so that does get a little tiresome. I won't go into plot details though, don't want to spoil anything for anyone that might pick this up.

 

I am willing to cut the game a fair bit of slack though, because I really didn't expect much. The last Spiders developed game I played was Bound by Flame which I liked, but it is definitely a bit of a mess to say the least!! Haha, but I did like it enough that I wanted to play this and Greedfall in the future, it really did feel like Spiders made a concerted effort to make improvements over their previous title, something I can definitely appreciate. Plus I'm a big fan of EuroRPG's which I suppose helped my tolerance level. I think this game builds on a lot of the positive and negative aspects of Bound by Flame, Technomancer has both a much more likeable protagonist and much improved, memorable party members that actually have a bit more substance to them.

 

The gameplay is vastly improved too I think, it genuinely does have quite interesting and frenetic combat, especially if you play a rogue style setup for the combat; you will definitely die quite often on Extreme difficulty but most of the time it is your own fault for getting a bit greedy with attacks instead of being smarter about dodging.Often with this game I see people bring up the difficulty, but I didn't find it too bad, not easy by any means but I went to level 25 on Extreme  difficulty without ever upgrading skills, so that kind of proves it isn't as bad as people might think. Mainly just so I could do a one play through platinum.

 

Trophy-wise it has the usual sort of thing you might expect. Do all companion quests, set number of quests, become arena champion, romance certain characters, see all endings and the hardest difficulty, that sort of thing. I don't know if I'm in the minority or not but I always appreciate a good looking set of trophy tiles and I think these ones themselves look really good, except ironically the platinum which looks a bit blander than some of the others, but hey you can't have everything.  The platinum took me just shy of 39 hours of game time apparently so if anybody was looking for a quick sort of mid length RPG this might be your thing, especially as it seems to go on sale quite often and it is a nice little 3.60% Ultra rare too if Ultra rare platinum's are also your thing.  If I had to sum it up in just a few words I'd probably say it is most like the original Mass Effect  but with melee combat and a less sophisticated plot. Still worth peoples time though I think!

 

Edited by rjkclarke
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm going to add a few more reviews here I think. I'll put a couple of Artifex Mundi games in here. I think in future classic reviews regarding Artifex Mundi games -  I'm going to put all of a particular series into one post, unless its stand alone or has anything significant to talk about.

 

I find it really hard to talk about Artifiex Mundi games in a particularly thorough fashion. I really like them but if you've played one, then you have pretty much played most of them. I think its just a pleasant bonus that you can earn trophies in games like that. It isn't that they're unoriginal its just their games are all pretty much the same just with a different coat of paint, but always a pleasant time nonetheless

 

Put it this way if Artifex Mundi ran a zoo and someone just happened to stroll in there at night, I wouldn't be surprised that if sales were poor that day, you would find all of the staff hurriedly painting black and white stripes onto horses  (Do horses live in  zoo's?) or at the very least glueing cotton wool onto Camel's to look like Llama's/Alpacas (Not sure Camels live in zoo's either haha but I'm sure you get my drift) just to look as different and appealing as possible. Strange analogy I know.

 

One of these is a new review though, I actually didn't realise that I hadn't written a review for Queen's Quest 2 yet, so that will at least be nice to go over that game again, because it was the one that I enjoyed the most out of the three Queen's Quest titles.

 

The Queen's Quest Series

 

 

LH9f5151.jpg

Platinum #298

Queen's Quest 2: Stories of Forgotten Past

 

L82bfc1.png

 

1Lfaa9e7.png

 

Platinum

Unlock every Trophy.

 

A Few Trophy Stats

 

Platinum Earned - 15 January 2021: 8:07:34  AM

Time Taken to Platinum :  4 hours, 47 minutes, 26 seconds

Platinum Rarity  - 84.66%

Trophy Number - #14,677

 

 

I think the reason I picked this series up probably seems quite odd. One day I realised I was only one letter away from having a full A-Z of platinum's and this series had been on my radar for a while so I thought, why not combine those two things. I am very fond of Artifex Mundi titles but I can't play them very often just because of how similar they all are, so I try to space them out a bit if I can. My hat goes off to all those people out there that can plough through multiple Artifex Mundi titles in a day.

 

It feels slightly strange going back to put in my thoughts about this game after already writing reviews of 3 and 4, I didn't start writing reviews until my 299th platinum so this almost got there. (Now I have 290+ to write! What a silly task I've assigned myself, but we'll get their one day when I'm probably about 68 haha.) I do think of the three Queen's Quest titles I've played this one does do the most with what it is. I've noticed that for the most part with Artifex Mundi games that are part of a series, there is usually one title out of several that really shine above the others - in the case of Queen's Quest I think its this one.

 

I REALLY enjoyed the story in this entry, it isn't anything particularly original (Transposing fairytales into a slightly different setting), but I loved the notion that the main character The Alchemist, could use her alchemy skills to solve various crimes that have been committed. From what I remember you end up doing a Red Riding Hood style murder investigation where you have to analyse blood samples and things like that. The story is quite compartmentalised too, almost like an anthology, where its several stories knitted together with one constant thread, in this case The Alchemist and her quest. Due to this factor, you never really stay in one place for too long, so there are a lot of new locations and characters that you end up meeting along the way. I particularly liked this because if Artifex Mundi always deliver 100% on something;  that is their art style and to see it utilised in such an interesting way here was a joy.

 

When the gameplay often feels very similar I always welcome any sort of variation on the usual formula and it does it really well here to the point where it never outstays its welcome. Its a shame really because I ended up feeling as if the latter two Queen's Quest titles barely utilised Alchemy at all, apart from a few instances here and there. There isn't a whole lot to say about the trophies because they are pretty much the same kind you see in most Artifex Mundi games. I wouldn't mind to be honest if they brought back the trophies for solving the puzzles in an alternate way, like the Mahjong or Pair matching games found within  Enigmatis/ Nightmares of the Deep, I think it would add a little bit of replay value too.

 

These games go on sale quite often for a decent price, which I think I mention in a review down below too, but they are fun games just ones where you pretty much will know what to expect going into them.

 

         ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

LHcc80ee.jpg

Platinum #301

Queen's Quest 3: The End of Dawn

 

Ld4f93f.png

 

1L69c6ea.png

 

Platinum

Unlock every Trophy.

 

 

A Few Trophy Stats

 

Platinum Earned - 27 January 2021: 11:40:47 PM

Time Taken to Platinum :  5 hours, 14 minutes, 12 seconds

Platinum Rarity  -  82.66%

Trophy Number - #14,748

 

Originally Written: January 28 2021

 

Needed something a bit relaxing after grinding through hours of the same game mode on Pure Pool. This certainly was relaxing. I tend to compare Artifex Mundi games to take away food or a familiar meal that you enjoy eating but couldn't eat every day. It is a bit lame but that is the best analogy I could come up with for games made by this developer.

 

I'll be honest though, this game isn't too far outside of the usual formula that most of the other Artifex Mundi titles I have played tend to stick to. You at least know what you are going to get. I don't think this is an improvement on Queen's Quest 2. That game has a fairly unique approach to the formula, adding a few gameplay elements that change things up a bit. I did have a lot of fun with Queen's Quest 3 though, if you like Artifex Mundi titles like I do ( They have some very impressive artistry in them, especially My Brother Rabbit). You are probably going to like this one too. Just don't expect a really intricate meaningful narrative, because I don't think you will find one.

 

But it is a nice chilled out relaxing experience. I think people know what to expect with these titles so I won't really mention the trophies apart from the fact this can be played on casual mode so you can go nuts clicking X all over the screen without worrying about the screen going blurry and your character going "ahh my head hurts". Funny thing is though, I think originally I picked up the Queen's Quest games because I wanted a platinum beginning with Q (bit weird I know) plus there isn't a whole lot of choice in that area haha!

 

                    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

LH35bcac.jpg

Platinum # 305

Queen's Quest 4: Sacred Truce

 

Lf8d523.png

 

1L45785f.png

 

Platinum

Unlock every Trophy.

 

A Few Trophy Stats

 

Platinum Earned - 17 February 2021: 1:22:48 AM

Time Taken to Platinum :  3 hours, 34 minutes, 14 seconds

Platinum Rarity  - 82.80%

Trophy Number - #14,893

 

 

 

Originally Written: February 17 2021.

 

After getting the 100% on Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles today, or I guess yesterday now haha! I thought I should give myself a nice relaxing few hours with another Artifex Mundi game. Quite the juxtaposition going from manic zombie slaying on rails, to playing as a peacekeeper in a world filled with Goblins and Elves. It certainly is the chilled out experience I think I needed, because RE: Umbrella Chronicles gave me motion sickness for some reason, nothing else does. Which is a shame because it was a great game for what it was. 

 

As HOP go though, I suppose Queen's Quest 4 is alright. you do always know what sort of game you are going to get usually, so if people played these expecting to be surprised they wouldn't be. The Trophies are exactly what you would expect from this sort of title, you can do it on Casual in this game as well, so that will make life even easier for everyone.. You also don't have to play the Bonus Episode either, but I recommend you do because it is actually quite fun.

 

As is always the case though Artifex Mundi do have some really charming artwork and quite peaceful musical scores. Definitely a fun way to spend a few hours though. Not really a whole lot more to say about it. It simply is what it is.  You can usually find the Queen's Quest games bundled together for a decent price, so I think if people wanted something to take the edge off between other more taxing games/platinum's these might be your thing.

 

          ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

So that's the Queen's Quest series ticked off the list to review now.  I've found that Artifex Mundi titles are kind of hard games to write anything particularly long form about, but considering how much I think that I have a tendency to never shut up and waffle too much, maybe smaller short form ones would be beneficial anyway. Its hard to say a lot, when there isn't much to talk about. I think My Brother Rabbit might be the exception to that when I get to it, because that game has SO much to talk about. Some of it works, some of it doesn't but we'll get there when we get there.

Edited by rjkclarke
  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I guess this is going to be my first classic review of a 100% only game. I'll try and keep this one short because its a sports game and who really likes to read about sports titles unless you actually like the sport, but it has to get done at some stage. I've watched a ridiculous amount of Snooker in the last few weeks, including the World Senior's Snooker Championship with all the oldies haha! So, really it seemed only fitting to dig through and review an OLD Snooker game. 

 

So I'll do International Snooker, which is a very low budget game that is still about £2 on the PS3 store. At the time I remember just thinking "WOOO another snooker game".  I guess in this case "Review" will be a fairly sketchy term as its more going to be a run down of my experiences getting the 100% its hard to really review a sports game that sort of just works in all departments adequately without it being incredibly short.

 

Without further ado -  rjkclarke to break.......

 

Classic Review

 

LH4bf8ce.jpg

 

International Snooker (PS3)

 

L612ce9.png

 

A Few Trophy Stats

 

100% Achieved - September 11 2020: 9:29:48 AM

Time taken to 100%: 5 Years, 3 Months, 1 week

100% Rarity - 1.70%%

17th Person to achieve 100%

 

 

 

 

 

Before I really begin, I think I should point out how odd it is looking at the 100% Club section for this game, Apparently I'm the 18th person to achieve the 100% in this game, but also I'm on all three lists of fastest, latest and first achievers, at the time of writing this at the very least. That seems quite funny really, I don't recall ever seeing myself on all 3 of those before. Although I think I must be for Pure Pool as well, I think that Platinum and DLC 100%  only has 9 achievers so far. This isn't me waving some bragging stick around either by the way, I just thought it was a strange thing to see.

 

I think I mentioned briefly in the opening of the post about this being a low budget title - it is, don't get me wrong, but it isn't bad by any means at all. I'm not just saying that because of my predisposed love of Snooker, if a game is bad I'm  going to say its bad. It actually has a fully integrated season mode  that has several tournaments in it, and it has several disciplines of pool as well, so when you think about how cheap the game is you actually get a lot of bang for your buck, or pound in my case I suppose.

 

I guess you could level the criticism at it, that there aren't any licensed players and every person is represented by a floating cue, but I think that's being unfair when you have to take into context the lower budget. It isn't perfect or anything, some of the ball physics are a little bit wonky, playing certain types of shots don't quite work because the balls sometimes act like they are made of concrete, then at different times act like they are filled with whatever beanbags are filled with, depending on how the game feels at the time. So it does end up being a bit of a learning curve, so it isn't obviously all perfect. I was quite fond of the inclusion that if you didn't chalk your cue, you would up miscuing often, but the game does let you use your earned credits  to purchase a type of chalk that just does it for you, otherwise you would be tapping square every few shots. Nonetheless it was a small bit of attention to detail I appreciated.

 

The journey towards the 100% in this was an odd one;  the majority of the trophies are fairly easy, clear up all the balls in pool disciplines, win one of the season mode tournaments, get X amount of score on a break, that sort of thing. I very clearly remember spending a big chunk of a Sunday morning trying to get the trophy for  a Maximum break of 147, I kind of just thought, lets go till I get it.

 

Ironically the trophy that stopped me from getting the 100% initially,  was the WIN 25 QUICK PLAY GAMES Trophy, which you'd think on paper would be the easiest, you'd probably be right too. The thing is, after 1 or 2 quick games, my game used to just freeze completely and the screen would go completely black and crashing my console, which ended up happening so frequently the only workaround for me was to delete the game and reinstall it each time it started to happen, as one could imagine going in and out of the PS3 store 10+ times was a pain,   so I had given up on it at some point, before going back to it last year. I'm glad I did go back to it, because its nice to have another Snooker game 100% completed on my profile. I actually have a similar story with Yakuza 5 and why that 100% took a while to get which was tied in with some troublesome black screens, but I'll save those for when I eventually review Yakuza 5.

       -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Anyway I'll take my Anorak off now and leave my probably only interesting to me thoughts in a nice spot above Haha!!

 

This was another enjoyable one to write up, because if you break it down and think about it, International Snooker really was good value for money.

 

I might do a full on Classic Platinum Review of one of the games on the list soon, depends how into Gravel I end up getting, because I've been quite enjoying that. So I should have the platinum before too long.

 

 

 

Edited by rjkclarke
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

As its currently Mental Health Awareness Week I think some of my posts this week should probably reflect that. Mental Health is still something that we still don't talk about enough or pay enough attention to - despite it being a topic that is gradually becoming more acceptable to discuss openly, it still gets neglected for various reasons and it shouldn't.

 

I did plan on doing a classic review on one of the Tales of' series platinum's but I think I'll hold off on that for a bit. There are plenty of games I've played that have either impacted on my Mental Health in various ways,  or at least contain subject matter that deals with the subject. So I think I'll start with Dear Esther: Landmark Edition; then perhaps Everybody's Gone to the Rapture and Rime as this years theme pertains to Nature, these seem a fairly solid choice. I have two reviews I've written before that I've meant to post in here as well that relate to the subject matter too, so this week seems as good a time as any.

 

Classic Review

 

LH572309.jpg

Dear Esther: Landmark Edition (PS4)

 

L09e2e0.png

 

A Few Trophy Stats

 

100% Achieved - 22 September 2020: 2:03:45 AM

Time taken to 100%: 1 day, 6 hours, 48 minutes

100% Rarity - 33.27%

 

 

 

Before we really get into this, I think I should put it out there, that when it comes to this game, if you are only interested in it for the easy trophies it contains, try to get rid of that mindset.  With games like this I think its better to just treat the trophies as a nice bonus. It would be too easy to get distracted here with thoughts like " OH NO DID I JUST MISS AN URN" or something similar that your attention starts to focus on the wrong areas.

 

Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin's first impressions of being on the surface of the Moon were of a "Magnificent desolation" in a way, the same sort of thought can be applied to the landscape found within Dear Esther. The game itself was if you weren't aware, essentially the genesis of "The Walking Simulator" genre - one of those marmite things in gaming, that I really think you do either love them or hate them, I can't really envision much middle ground.

 

I've seen a lot of unfair criticisms of how "empty" Dear Esther is. I sort of feel the opposite way, I think if it was any more than what it is, a large amount of its depth would be lost. I feel as if YOU need that emptiness. Its one of those area's where I think the game really shines. That desolate, bleak and grey landscape I feel really helps you to focus on the information your are being fed on a gradual basis by the Narrator. It isn't all grey though, the caves in particular are very vibrant and pulsate colour, which actually really contrasts well with the information you learn whilst inside them. I do strongly feel though, and I must stress this is just my opinion obviously, that if there were other people/ things to interact with I think the ability to empathise with the player character, who may or may not be the games Narrator would be a much harder task. There is so much room for quiet contemplation as you traverse the fictional Hebridean Island found in Dear Esther, that you just wouldn't take in if it was filled with other characters present. The landscape for me at least evoked such strange feelings of isolation, solitude and loneliness - but as I got further in,  strangely also a sense of hope and quiet peace.

 

The way the game chooses to tell its story is through a narrator reading fragmentary passages of letters written to Esther. I'll not elaborate on the details of the plot -  because anybody that is interested enough can unravel the mysteries of it all for themselves, as they should. Nigel Carrington really did a good job with his voice performance when reading the letter passages, it was a task that would be so easy to do in a generic fashion, but he brought some real personality to the Narrator I thought. Its important to always remember that outside of the Director's Commentary he is essentially the only voice you hear.

 

I feel like this really needs to be mentioned; The Chinese Room are lucky to have someone like Jessica Curry as a key member of their team. The OST in this game is so incredibly well crafted. You can see how much Curry's passion for her art shines through during the playthrough where you have to listen to the Director's Commentary, its always refreshing to hear somebody talk so enthusiastically about something that clearly meant so much to them.There is actually a whole thread in the Dear Esther forum on this site that contains both valid and pretty unfair ridiculing of the Director's Commentary. I personally found it quite refreshing to hear what a lot of the motivations were behind certain iconic locations in the game and elements of the plot that can be quite easily missed.

 

Whilst, I can concede that there are a few points where they are definitely just "shooting the breeze" for something to say, I still think much of what they offered was quite insightful. Plus y'know, like with everything there is always a choice, you could just not listen to the Commentary. Yes you might miss out on a trophy, but if you don't like it either turn off the audio and trudge through till the trophy pops or don't complain about it. Put it this way I'm sure if Alfred Hitchcock had been alive to record an audio commentary for Psycho I'd be surprised if people were criticising him saying things like "OMG HE'S JUST BLOWING SMOKE UP HIS OWN ARSE, WHAT A PRETENTIOUS INDIVIDUAL". Psycho and Dear Esther aren't comparable obviously, but if Dear Esther was a steaming pile of dung I might understand the harsh words levelled at the dev's. Ultimately its their game and I think they should be able to talk about it how they want to, it isn't like they spend the whole thing just patting themselves on the back. Apologies if the above comes across too much like a rant, I'll edit it out if I think it makes me come across like an end of a bell.

 

I think everyone that is interested in the "Walking Simulator Genre" should experience this at some point, it goes on sale very often. Try not to be put off by the fact it doesn't have a Platinum. In fact I pretty much haven't spoken about the trophies in this because, I'll be honest they don't impact on my opinion, they are easy and that's that. It felt good to talk about this one, Dear Esther has come a long way since its humble beginnings as a Half Life 2 mod.

 

 

Edited by rjkclarke
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another one off the ever growing backlog, goodbye Gravel, you were a game. I'll leave my thoughts below, bit tough to really say much about Gravel, so this might actually end up short for once. It just served a purpose to scratch a driving game itch I get every once in a while.

Gravel Review

LHcc1486.jpg

Platinum #320

Gravel (PS4)

 

L8fcf64.png
 

1Lb7f26a.png

 

Gravel Hero

Unlock all trophies

 

A Few Trophy Stats

 

Platinum Earned - 13 May 2021: 9:18: 21 PM

Time Taken to Platinum :  5 days, 7 hours, 3 minutes

Platinum Rarity  - 38.87%

Trophy Number - #15, 465

 

Every once in a while, I get the urge to go through a racing game. This was one of those times. If I'm being honest I probably use it as a bit of an excuse to listen to a lot of Podcasts or Music, because rarely do they ever contain any kind of meaningful story or narrative, this one certainly doesn't. Just before purchasing it I thought,  Gravel looked to me like a low budget mixture of Dirt and Driveclub, which I guess didn't turn out to be too far away from what it was actually like.

 

Gravel did quite surprise me by actually being quite visually appealing, I guess a lot of the surprise arose from how little I paid for the game - something like £4 I believe. All of the car's look like they should, and some of the liveries that you can unlock look quite colourful and vibrant. I should add that Gravel also had surprisingly good weather effects, not in anyway as good as Driveclub tends to be. I've never seen weather effects in a racing game done as well as that game. Driving through snow and rain in Driveclub is equal parts terrifying and exhilarating, even more so when its night time....... Still, this is a write up of Gravel, not Driveclub so back on track. Gravel's weather effects themselves are still good for what they are, just a bit odd sometimes. It does feel a bit strange driving across a track that usually is covered in sand and sunshine, all the while a thunder storm rages on around you.

 

I hate to say it but one of the worst aspects of  Gravel is its OST, it basically doesn't have one, which I can understand, I'm sure a lot of the games budget went into licensing the vehicles. Due to this though, unless you turn the music down and use your own you're  going to be hearing SO MUCH GENERIC ROCK!! In fact a lot of the sound I just turned down because it does get a little bit obnoxious to be honest. None more so than in the games story mode, (If you can call it that) "Off Road  Masters" whilst I like the idea of the story mode, the only voice you ever hear is one person. I hope this person never reads this because its going to sound brutal, he has such a grating voice. Its almost as if they just stumbled across a British man on a train platform wearing a plastic Anorak, Jelly Shoes and a Pudding Basin Haircut like a Medieval Squire, with a Thermos in one hand and a  Notepad in the other, writing down all the Trains he had seen that day and the dev's  thought to themselves "HIM, HIM,  he's who we need to carry this games story on his back!"

 

Now that I've gotten that out of my system, lets get to the gameplay and the trophies. The gameplay is actually where the game does shine. In a racing game you always want to have competent driving controls and options, as well as fair difficulty levels. This has all the above and thankfully, doesn't really contain any sort of rubber banding that I really noticed, that was one of the things that really bought down Dangerous Driving a notch or two. The Off Road Masters mode is very varied too, which is always nice, I didn't really get bored the whole time I played through it. I'm all for as much variety as possible.

 

As for the trophies. they are all incredibly straight forward apart from a few which are all still quite easy, just require a little bit of effort. I guess that's why the Platinum rarity is something like 39%, because the game essentially just requires you to do everything, although grinding to level 99 did outstay its welcome a little bit if I'm honest. I think by that point I had, had my fill. There wasn't a gun pointed at my head forcing me, so it isn't like I can complain too much. It does have online trophies, which as the online is pretty much dead now you'll have to find someone to boost it with I guess. Shout out to @M-Netto333 for helping me out with those, that was quite a fun little session, quite funny too,  as I was ridiculously tired driving around the track like a complete idiot at 6AM. If I was going to give advice to anyone, I would say play through Off Road Masters with as many of the options on that boost your XP, just to save yourself a bit of time later on.

 

I feel like I'm saying this a lot at the moment about the games I'm playing, whilst I do recommend it, you do have to know what you are getting into before playing it. Try not to expect it to blow you away, but its definitely a solid fun time and I definitely don't regret playing it.

 

      ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

I think, I'll write that Classic Review of Everybody's Gone to the Rapture later on, be good to get my thoughts on that out, I think I might play through it again, because its been about 5 and a half years since I've played it. Should be nice to refresh my memory a bit.

 

Think I'll attack Vampyr next as far as cutting down my backlog goes.

Edited by rjkclarke
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So lets continue with the theme of Mental Health and get down to Everybody's Gone to the Rapture. I picked this one mainly because of the theme of Nature for Mental Health week this year. I can't sleep so here I am at 6AM typing out my thoughts on a game that has stuck with me for years. Something that even, five years on I still think of fairly often. So lets get to it!

 

Classic Review

LH794bac.jpg

 

Platinum # 113

Everybody's Gone to the Rapture (PS4)

 

Ldf8263.png

 

1L7f7c31.png

 

This Pattern is Mine

You got them all. you got them all.

 

A Few Trophy Stats

 

Platinum Earned - 24 November 2016 -  4:19:51 PM

Time Taken to Platinum : 1 week, 6 days, 16 hours

Platinum Rarity  - 17.74%

Trophy Number - #6,336

 

 

I might as well say this now, I love this game. I'll still try to be as objective as possible, I'm sure my own opinions are going to creep in all over the place too. I think they should though, they are my thoughts after all so here seems as good a place as any. This is one of those games I think I would always use in an debate over whether or not video games can be considered an art form. I think the divisive nature of this game just goes to show that really is the case too. Much like a lot of art is, so I don't see why that same kind of thinking can't be applied here. I've seen plenty of debates over the years over whether or not this even is a game.

 

I personally think its all about perspective in this games case and just leaving any sort of preconceived notions about what a video game is at the door with a title like this. I don't want to sound too much like I'm floating around on a Hippie cloud, but I do think you need to have a very open mind going into a game like this. It isn't a necessity, could be that a game like this ends up being the thing that opens your mind up to the odd thing or two.

 

If you've played anything from the "Walking Simulator" genre you kind of know what to expect here from the gameplay. So there isn't a whole lot that I can talk about on that one. Whilst I'm on the subject of gameplay though, I've always been fairly curious about how this game might play in VR. As far as I know there isn't VR available for it, I'm not sure there should be either. Still, I've often wondered what it would be like. There are areas and events that take place in this game that I found incredibly harrowing just experiencing through a TV so I feel like a VR headset would only have taken that to a whole different level of haunting immersion. I'm not going to mention the story at all I don't think because that should remain as unspoiled as possible for anyone that hasn't experienced this yet. I think all of the characters felt very real and believable.

 

I do hear a lot of criticisms about how fast you move in this game though. The thing is, if you had the option to run I don't think anyone would take as much time to think about what's really going on in the games narrative, really that's why you should be playing something like this. I DO understand the criticism, I'm perfectly cool with that, everyone is allowed to have an opinion -  but I think the majority of the  complaints end up being for the wrong reasons. As we are on a trophy related site plenty of the people are going to want to get the trophies in the most efficient way possible so because they have to replay sections or an entire playthrough for trophy clean up they might feel like their experience is somewhat diminished.

 

I find it very doubtful that this game was developed with efficient trophy hunting in mind, nor do I think that it should have been. So I think we should take that into consideration before lobbying a load of complaints at this game for being slow or boring. If people find the narrative pretentious or uninteresting that's fine, not everyone can like everything. In the least arse-ish way possible;  I'm trying to say that we shouldn't project our thoughts on what makes a platinum fun or not onto a game where in the development cycle, trophies were probably an afterthought. I feel like a fun platinum and a good game aren't always mutually exclusive. 

 

If I compared Dear Esther to the "Magnificent desolation" quote from Buzz Aldrin, then Everybody's Gone to the Rapture might be, if I had to describe it myself would be a serene desolation. This game is absolutely gorgeous, but so empty in equal parts. Its amazing how well achieved it is in areas of the game where it can feel so alive and full of colour, but so desolate, desperate and lonely all rolled into one. I think the caravan park, Howard's House (with the train set) and The Pub particularly illustrate this. Light is used in a very interesting way here too. In a way that Inspired The Town of Light quite a lot I think. Everybody's Gone to the Rapture contains so many intricate small details too, that I think the slow paced nature of the game really allow you to take in and notice. As this weeks Mental Health week is Nature themed it would be silly of me not to at least mention it somewhere. The Chinese Room did such a wonderful job here with how they used nature to frame their themes. Personally I always associate nature with life, so in a game that is so "lifeless" but colourful at the same time was really well realised. To be honest, I think another dev team might have just completely washed all the colour out, instead of just having a huge amount of juxtaposition. I've never spoken to anyone outside of the UK about this game, so I don't know whether or not my own thoughts about how nature is represented are more down to how familiar it all felt to me.

 

Whilst, writing out my thoughts on Dear Esther, I massively sung the praises of Jessica Curry and I can't praise her enough here either. So much of the atmosphere found within Everybody's Gone to the Rapture comes from both the OST and the Sound Design itself. Its such an excellent use of both, I think "haunting" is probably the most apposite way to describe the musical score - any use of the violin in particular. I think Sound Design is an incredibly underappreciated thing in both Video Games and Cinema (I would say that, I'm a trained Sound Designer haha) but my own thoughts aside, if its done badly you really notice, but when its REALLY done well, then you can get something like this. There is so much attention to detail with the Sound Design here, even down to how the dialogue has been recorded. Practically everything feels like its been put there for a purpose, from the strange toner sounds and static, the odd noises repeating throughout really help enhance what is already a very off key atmosphere. I could go into a lot more detail about this but this is already fairly long as it is.

 

Now we come to the trophies I guess, which I suppose for most people will be the most interesting thing, we are on a trophy tracking website after all haha. I'm always personally a fan of when a game pretty much asks yo to do every thing that is in the game. This game does that too, but I think its also where a lot of the criticism comes from. Most people don't tend to want to play a game for trophies any longer than they have to, myself included. I still don't think it takes more than 15 hours, so its not like its a huge time sink. Ironically if you don't go for the trophies in this game you do end up missing so many important plot details and intricacies. Slow walking aside I do think its a very worthwhile experience. I remember having to do at least one extra playthrough to get the platinum, I'm pretty sure I missed one of the "You Are Here" signs, but I find elements of this game really calming so I quite enjoyed that playthrough where it was essentially just a story-less walk through an empty countryside.

 

I think it goes without saying that I recommend this to everyone who hasn't experienced it. Even if you don't end up going for the platinum - just give it a playthrough and see what you think, its very short and at times mesmerising in how its presented. You could definitely consider the game a little on the pretentious side, but not in a David Cage kind of way where he seems to constantly want to pat himself on the back and say "LOOK HOW DEEP I AM."  I think I'd have the same opinion of Everybody's Gone to the Rapture whether there were trophies or not.

 

        -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

If you've read this far then, well your eyes are probably bleeding. This might be the longest one of these I've ever written, but it felt so good to get it written. I hope I didn't sound too much like a pretentious cockwomble, but I do sometimes get a little over passionate. I totally understand both sides of the criticisms and praise that get thrown around regarding this game.so I've always had fun discussing this one.

 

 

Edited by rjkclarke
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not sure in the end that I really mentioned Mental Health all that much when talking about Everybody's Gone to the Rapture. I sort of did, but I'm not sure I've figured it out myself exactly how that game makes me feel even after all these years, but its definitely effected me in a few ways so I thought it might have been a good one to mention. 

 

Time to drop another review that I've previously written, I'll probably add to it here and there though, I think once you take the "easy platinum" out of the equation The Town of Light is telling such an important story that I hope reaches as many people as possible. Its also quite pertinent considering its Mental Health Awareness Week. So here we go again....

 

The Town of Light Review

LHb672e5.jpg

Platinum # 303

The Town of Light (PS4)

 

Le3154d.png

 

1L6a5528.png

 

The Town of Light

Unlock all trophies

 

A Few Trophy Stats

 

Platinum Earned - 7 February 2021: 6:00:00 AM

Time Taken to Platinum :  4 hours, 28 minutes, 29 seconds

Platinum Rarity  - 63.18%

Trophy Number - #14,825

 

Originally Written: February 8 2021

 

I totally recommend this game for anybody that is a fan of the "Walking Simulator" genre. The story of this game is really something quite special, but at the same time it is quite bleak and desolate feeling, but this does add to the atmosphere I think the dev's were going for. I won't go into any detail about the story because anybody that is even remotely interested in it should see it for themselves.

 

This game benefits greatly from being an indie title I think, mainly because the restrictions in the games budget actually help to tell the story better. I think if this had been a AAA title then there would probably be an overabundance of exposition going from area to area. The minimal dialogue however, I thought added a little extra layer as it allows you to think about the latest story revelations a bit more as you move from place to place. I would also recommend people play the game in Italian and use subtitles where available, I played around with the English voice acting whilst cleaning up some of the trophies and I thought the Italian voice over's were much better. Plus the game is set in Italy and the protagonist is Italian so it just makes sense I think.

 

Town of Light took me about 5 hours to platinum I think. Although obviously it can be done much faster than that, I wasn't trying to get through it particularly quickly. It does contain a chapter select as well which makes doing some of the clean-up trophies much more bearable, add to that the fact that some of the chapters you need to replay take less than five minutes. It does have a few diary pages to pick up, but there is only 8 of them and one other collectible that takes about 10 minutes to pick up. if you bother to look at them in the ingame menu they contain some very interesting artwork too, which is always a nice bonus.

 

The design of the game itself is very interesting too, based on a real world setting, but again I don't want to talk about it too much, I think it is something people should see for themselves. The music and sound design in this game are put to very good use as well, managing to be both relaxing and incredibly unsettling at different times. There are a few moments throughout the story where the use of Sound Design in particular becomes very David Lynch-esque. (Very reminiscent of Eraserhead in particular). As bleak as the story and the settings are at times, this game is absolutely worth peoples time. A VERY important story that I'm glad was told in the nuanced way that it deserved.

 

      -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Wow, so there was a time when I could be more concise and less " fancy wordy" haha - it wasn't even that long ago either. Although it looks like I wrote about the trophies way more than I thought I might have done.  I'm still going to expand a bit here though I think.

 

The Town of Light is a game worth talking about so much more than just the trophies found within though, I did touch upon it briefly in that review, but I really think the story being told is so IMPORTANT.

 

Whilst Renee T and the other characters found within The Town of Light are entirely fictional The Volterra Psychiatric Hospital it takes place in most certainly was a real place. The scary thing is though I'm sure there are plenty of people like Renee T all over the world, throughout history that just "fell through the cracks of society" spending much of their natural life institutionalised when perhaps they shouldn't have been. Its quite a heartbreaking thing to think about so I won't dwell on it too much. 

 

These are just my own personal thoughts, but on reflection, this game makes me feel quite lucky to be living in a time where this probably happens much less frequently. Whilst you can argue messages like this game's  have been done better on Film and TV over the years -  One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Manic are good examples of this, I don't think its often done well in Video Game form. I feel like too often it can fall into the category of Mental Illness stereotypes, sometimes even in an almost mocking fashion. instead of exploring the broader effects of Mental Illness and its effects on the people and those around them.

 

Unfortunately it can be a dark cloud that looms over us all, but talking about these sorts of things really does help. I really appreciate the fact The Town of Light handled the subject in the respectful way it should be, it does stray into the realms of body horror a few times, but unfortunately in quite a believable way too.

 

At least one of these I post in the next few days will be more upbeat haha, I am going to write a Classic Review of Rime too. I'll probably do that later, but I'm hoping to sneak one of Broken Sword 5 in, because that game effected my Mental Health in an incredibly positive way. I think I need to inject this thread with a bit more POSITIVITY, not sure how detailed I'll go with that one as far as what took me to the dark place that game got me out of, but we'll see. I guess I'd be ignoring my own words from above if I didn't.

 

Edited by rjkclarke
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, DrunkenEngineer said:

Man, hats off to you for the very detailed trophy introspectives.  Most impressive that these are coming from memory, too.

 

Thank you!! That's awesome to hear. I'm kind of curious to see how detailed I'm going to be able to go on some things that are getting towards close to ten years since I've played, but I guess I'll try and do the best I can on that one. I'm having a really fun time writing them too, so its an extra bonus that definitely helps keep some of the grey matter whirring so to speak.

Edited by rjkclarke
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, I'm enjoying Vampyr a whole lot more than I expected to. Not that I thought that I wouldn't, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered to start it, but its approach to storytelling has really surprised me so far. So I'm looking forward to delving even further into that soon.

 

I'm going to get that Classic Review of Rime done now I think, I'm going to be cutting it pretty fine to get a Broken Sword 5 one out today on the 16th, but I might push through and try to. Its still Mental Health Awareness Week and it feels like I should try and end that on a more POSITIVE note, so even if it drifts into the next day I think I'll still post it.

 

Classic Review

LH6f7259.jpg

Platinum #159

Rime (PS4)

 

L0024ed.png

 

1Ld9bf75.png

 

The end is a new beginning

Obtain all trophies

 

A Few Trophy Stats

 

Platinum Earned - 17 February 2018 - 1:38:49 AM

Time Taken to Platinum :  1 day, 2 hours, 13 minutes

Platinum Rarity  - 22.93%

Trophy Number - #8,487

 

 

 

It always seems very easy to jump aboard the negativity train and throw abuse at PS+, I don't feel like I ever can though, yes occasionally we get given games we already own, but that's hardly Sony's fault is it, there will be a lot of people who don't have those games. I only mention it because, I,  like many others probably only played Rime because it was a plus title. I've personally had so many worthwhile experiences from games that have been included as Plus games and I'm sure I will still continue to, so I find it hard to really be able to complain all that much.

 

Whilst it would be quite simple to throw Rime under the umbrella of an "easy platinum" in much the same way you can with Everybody's Gone to the Rapture and The Town of Light - it would be quite easy to just go blundering in blindly in the pursuit of another shiny thing to have on your list, I honestly think Rime is worth so much more than that though.

 

One of the things that really works in the favour of Rime is that its incredibly universal. No matter what country you are from or what language you speak, I think the overarching message being presented in Rime would still be the same one - still being conveyed the exact same way. In a lot of ways I feel like there are comparisons to be made with ICO. Not just visually, which is fairly apparent if you've played both titles. The two games  have such  a beautiful simplicity to them that really stays with you, ICO perhaps being a little more upbeat and maybe even having a bit less to say on a subtextual level than perhaps Rime does. The gameplay is incredibly simple and easy to grasp, so there isn't really anything very significant to talk about.

 

Visually, Rime is spectacular. All of the beautiful colours and vibrancy do an almost perfect job of hiding that dark sadness that lies beneath. I specifically chose Rime, due to the fact that Nature is the theme for this years Mental Health Awareness Week. Nature is all over Rime, that's also the heartbreaking irony of it all. I really don't want to go into any spoilers about the story so I'll tread carefully but I think the way the dev's crammed the world so full of animals, plants and just LIFE in general, it had to have been deliberate on their part.

 

You could argue the art style itself is not too unique, but its hard to do cel shading badly I think. I'm personally a big fan of cel shaded titles. The cel shading in Rime is almost a strange juxtaposition; I usually find that the act of cel shading any game almost eliminates any sort of attachment to what we associate with our own reality, but its not really the case in RIme, it had almost the opposite effect once you start to realise where the plot is headed. This was just my view on it, I obviously can't speak for everyone else, but Rimes very specific art style really enhanced the experience for me - another testament to its simplicity I think, a higher budget title might have felt the need to over animate, the child's expressions.

 

The use of sound design and music in Rime is especially well utilised too. The Nature aspect specifically actually, small attention to details like multiple wind sounds and animal noises. All of these really help to build the atmosphere of the game. Sometimes, just the mere act of being outside and amongst real living things can be enough to give us bit of a boost to our mental health, so the way the game conveys the optimism and almost light hearted atmosphere through sound design at the start is excellent. it all seems very peaceful and serene whilst all the time something is a little, "off" is probably the simplest way to describe it.

 

From what I remember, the level with the sentinel's that is quite desolate and sandy is very well realised, a huge contrast to the opening where there is just so much going on, the lack of much sound really helped to convey how sinister those sentinels seem at first. I can't remember exactly, because its been three years at this point since I played it, but one of the areas that utilised sound design to incredible effect was the area with the storms and the heavy rain. I'm going to put my pretentious tit hat on for just a second and say - as one of the main themes of Rime is the acceptance of grief, the way in which the rain and thunder drowns our your helpless shouts and cries, making everything seem so futile and out of your control, was an incredibly clever way of utilising the sound design in that specific area;  a small but incredibly important attention to detail, which really highlights some of the thematic elements Rime  is presenting.

 

So onto the trophies then, whilst Rime is an easy platinum, it isn't exactly a short one. There are a lot of collectibles and miscellaneous things that you do have to go out of your way to find. Plenty of great guides available though, plus doing them nets you a secret ending, which if the original ending didn't give you a hefty bullet to the feelings, then the secret ending almost certainly will. I'm fairly sure I had to do a significant amount of clean up for some reason, so I guess I must have missed something important, but that was my fault and the game is a fairly chilled out time anyway. I know this section is incredibly short, but there really just isn't that much to say about the trophies. I'm going to sound like a broken record, but in these types of games trophies always just feel like a bonus. The tiles themselves are incredibly pretty I think, the platinum one specifically is always a nice one to have a glance at.

 

If you have this in your backlog or you've often been interested in it, but never picked it up, find the time to play it - because its an incredibly worthwhile experience. The story that is there, is incredible and its very moving too. Saying things like time to move on and the like are all well and good, but there is always a process to these things, before people can truly get to that point and I think the narrative here illustrates that so well. I'm trying to be as vague as possible. It asks a lot of you emotionally. However, Rime was for me a very interesting experience.

 

 

Edited by rjkclarke
  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So, its still Mental Health Awareness focused for this month everywhere else right? Just a week in the UK. So yeah I guess this will be overdue. This probably won't pertain much to nature though outside of a Goat, but I wanted to end these Mental Health related posts with a bit more positivity.

 

Its about time I put up that Broken Sword 5 Classic Review. (Not sure this one will be a review in the usual sense, more a collection of my thoughts this time.) Still,  I'm hoping writing this is going to be helpful and cathartic but we'll see. My head was really messed up when I played this game five years ago, but I remember at the time how much playing through it and getting the Platinum really uplifted me. So I thought this seemed like the right way to book-end my posts regarding Mental Health Awareness.

 

I'd better get this written before I get attacked by an ANGRY OLD GOAT!!

 

Classic Review

LHd8a0cf.jpg

Platinum #94

Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse

 

Lcc904d.png

 

 

1L2e1c38.png

 

Ultimate Adventurer

Track down all trophies

 

A Few Trophy Stats

 

Platinum Earned - 22 March 2016: 1:36:21 AM

Time Taken to Platinum :  1 day, 15 hours, 34 minutes

Platinum Rarity  - 47.17%

Trophy Number - #5,170

 

 

 

 

Alright, so first I better put my storytelling hat  on to try and give a bit of context to why I was feeling so lousy. I debated not doing this, but as I said at the end of the Rime review if I didn't talk about my own thoughts and feelings it would be a bit hypocritical.

 

To set the scene, in 2016, I'm basically right near the end of my time at University. That's all fine apart from the insane amount of work building up and the looming dissertation that I was writing hanging over my head. That was a little stressful sure, but on top of that we were all put into groups to make a short film which was also being assessed. 

 

The Film was written by me and was supposed to be directed by myself also. It wasn't by the way, I never got to direct it -  because someone else didn't feel comfortable using Sound equipment, I'd used it many times and so they became the Direcor instead. I was a little disappointed sure, but I was fine with it. Initially maybe notbut eventually at least. The person who did Direct it, is a good friend of mine and I don't want to sound like I'm piling the blame onto him, because it isn't his fault at all. I'm putting this here just in case he somehow reads this. I'm  VERY, VERY grateful to him for how much effort he did put into our film.

 

I'm immensely passionate about Film, probably even more so than video games. (Don't worry I'll throw some running shoes on in a minute and you can chase me off this gaming site with some pitchforks and torches with PS4 lightbars on the end if you all feel the need haha!) So as the year drew on this film ran into disaster after disaster; I was getting demoralised day after day by how this was going and more and more assignments just kept coming in.

 

I'll skip ahead to March now, by this time the Film had already been shot, we were in the process of doing all of the post production. The problem was our Editor had basically gone AWOL, they didn't even want to sync the sound up, so all the effort I had put in making sound effects and recording sound felt completely futile.So essentially,  the Director and I had to basically learn how to edit in the space of a few weeks, with software we hadn't really used just to somehow finish it all off. All the while having lots of other things to juggle, as I said I was also writing a dissertation whilst all this was happening.

 

I think all that pressure just eventually built up a bit too much. I was ridiculously stressed.  I'm aware there are bigger things to worry about for so many people, so I hope I don't sound like I'm whinging about something that seemed trivial, but to me it meant a lot. It was tough to see something I had envisioned becoming what it became. I remember getting home from a late lecture about 8PM and sitting in a dark room and thinking I just don't want to deal with this right now, so I turned my PS4 on, loaded up Broken Sword 5 and a nice bit of Platinum Hunting was exactly the uplifting distraction that I needed at the time.

 

GAME TIME!!!!

 

I  think I should actually talk about the game now haha! I'd wanted to play Broken Sword 5 for such a long time at around the time I picked this up. I've been a big fan of the series since I was quite young. I even dabbled with the idea of picking up a Vita to play it before the PS4 version was released. If anyone was wondering my favourite Broken Sword is either the first or the third one. I've still yet to play the fourth one because to be honest, my PC would probably struggle to run Minesweeper now. Even though its essentially just point and clicking, if my PC were a living  thing -  the minute it tried to point, its finger would just snap off.

 

The Broken Sword series has always looked very distinctive. It has some very unique character designs and to say its stylised would probably be an understatement. Stylistically, I'd probably say this fifth instalment is a triumphant return to form. Whilst above I said that I sometimes cite the third game as my favourite, its story really appealed to me for some reason - I like the visual style of the third entry  the least probably. It feels quite drab and washed out, like quite a few titles from the mid 2000's did, to varying degrees of success. With Broken Sword 5, it was a fine return to the hand drawn/ comic book style aesthetic found within Broken Sword 1 and 2. 

 

There isn't a whole lot to say about Broken Sword 5's OST and Sound Design outside of I remember it being pretty decent. The area where it really shines is its voice work, Rolf Saxon and Emma Tate do fantastic jobs as Nico and George, it must be strange having played George all this time and had a different actress to work with as Nico each time. The fact they do such a tremendous job with the chemistry of the characters throughout the series is a testament to Rolf's ability in particular. One of my personal highlights were some of the reoccurring characters throughout this game.There are some old faces and some new ones thrown in. Now that I've played the recent version of King's Quest, the Hobblepot's in that game remind me of two characters in this that just show up when you don't expect them to and always bring a funny moment with them. I'll not mention the story outside of those vague mentions of characters just now, this is a primarily a narrative experience so if people did want to play it -  as usual I'd hate to give out spoilers without thinking. Its a very enjoyable experience though, especially good if you are a fan of the series. Plus the NIGHTMARE GOAT, returns so that's a nice little cameo.

 

As I often say, when I'm talking about games of this Ilk, just the  mere the fact they have trophies in them is always a really great bonus I think. I'd still play them even if they didn't contain trophies. In this title you are looking at about 6 hours to Platinum, which is why I practically did the whole thing in one sitting. I had started it the day before, but I didn't get very far in at all. There are a few missables to watch out for, so its worth being aware of those going in. It isn't like Yesterday Origins, where it has quite a few easily missable items that can really mess up your playthrough. Just being aware of them or using a guide that highlights them when they are coming up should be enough to keep you covered. Most of the other trophies are either plot related or they involve some sort of intricate yet quite funny Easter Eggs. Lots of Goat related ones here, as that Goat has practically become synonymous with the Broken Sword series at this point. 

 

I think it goes without saying that I recommend this game. I have a lot to thank it for. The simplicity of its trophies and the familiarity of a series that I loved for such a long time, were exactly the kind of uplifting experience that I needed when I played this. For me, this game was a huge reinforcement of the positive aspects of trophy hunting. That it should always, always be FUN. Was there an ultra rare Platinum in sight? No there wasn't -  but I had just as much of a positive experience playing this as I'm sure I would have done if it did. Some people might look at Broken Sword on a list and just think "easy platinum " - but maybe, just maybe for the person who's list its on, it isn't just that. To me it was so much more, which is why I felt the need to tell the story at the start. This has definitely been a cathartic one to write, I hope it ended in a positive anyway.

 

 

Edited by rjkclarke
  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, rjkclarke said:

 

Snip

 

 

Nice review mate - Broken Sword are a gaming blind spot for me - always been aware of them, but never actually played one - and this got me interested.

 

Having played most of them, how approachable would you say they are for a newcomer - i.e. is jumping in on 5 likely to mean the player is lost story-wise, and you would really need to go back and start with the first one? Or is there enough of an on-ramp to enjoy the latest one without prior context?

Edited by DrBloodmoney
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said:

Nice review mate - Broken Sword are a gaming blind spot for me - always been aware of them, but never actually played one - and this got me interested.

 

Thanks man!! I do appreciate that, because I put a lot more of myself into that review than I think I was probably comfortable with, but it felt good to get it out there so to speak. That's super awesome if it might have piqued your interest in the Broken Sword series too. Plenty of us have those gaming series that seem to just pass them by, I know I've got plenty. Although I'm going to look a bit of a numpty if you did play Broken Sword and end up hating it haha.

 

7 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said:

Having played most of them, how approachable would you say they are for a newcomer - i.e. is jumping in on 5 likely to mean the player is lost story-wise, and you would really need to go back and start with the first one? Or is there enough of an on-ramp to enjoy the latest one without prior context?

 

To its credit, I think Broken Sword does a really good job of being very accessible to newcomers to the series for the most part. It doesn't assume you know things, I think its a bit unfair when games do that.

 

How good is your tolerance for point and click games? I only ask because this one is very much the 90's mould of one, so its maybe a bit slow  as far as gameplay goes.

 

Thankfully Broken Sword 5 also has the foresight to know that this might be peoples first one, if something does specifically refer back to an earlier game they usually explain it with some context so you don't feel like you're left out of the loop. It doesn't feel forced like these things often do either - I feel like they sometimes fall into the trap of coming off like a huge exposition dump. They essentially weave them into the dialogue anecdotally, which fits the two protagonists to a tee. 

 

I guess its comparable to Monkey Island 5/ Tales of Monkey Island. You don't need to have played all of the others games to have a worthwhile Monkey Island experience. That game equally is quite accessible in that you can essentially jump into it without any prior knowledge and probably have almost the same experience as one who did.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, rjkclarke said:

 

How good is your tolerance for point and click games? I only ask because this one is very much the 90's mould of one, so its maybe a bit slow  as far as gameplay goes.

 

Yeah, pretty high - I was a big LucasArts / Sierra guy back in the day - as well as the Discworld point-and-click games (Which no one outside of the UK seems to remember!)

 

18 minutes ago, rjkclarke said:

Thankfully Broken Sword 5 also has the foresight to know that this might be peoples first one, if something does specifically refer back to an earlier game they usually explain it with some context so you don't feel like you're left out of the loop. It doesn't feel forced like these things often do either - I feel like they sometimes fall into the trap of coming off like a huge exposition dump. They essentially weave them into the dialogue anecdotally, which fits the two protagonists to a tee. 

 

I guess its comparable to Monkey Island 5/ Tales of Monkey Island. You don't need to have played all of the others games to have a worthwhile Monkey Island experience. That game equally is quite accessible in that you can essentially jump into it without any prior knowledge and probably have almost the same experience as one who did.

 

Cool - seems okay to jump in on 5 then - I've done all the Monkey Island games - though I think I did them out of order! - so if they're in that kind of mould, I'd imagine I get it - some callback stuff for the veterans, but not enough to be too noticeable for the new lot ?

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

26 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

Yeah, pretty high - I was a big LucasArts / Sierra guy back in the day - as well as the Discworld point-and-click games (Which no one outside of the UK seems to remember!)

 

Yeah we're pretty much on the same page on that one then. Although I haven't played the Discworld point and click games. I've always wanted to, Its one of those that just got away from me I suppose. Nothing to stop me playing them at some point though.

 

Have you played the newer version of King's Quest? I thought that was one of the best utilisations of the "Episodic" formula for quite some time. I really hope it gets a sequel of some sort. The way that connects to the other King's Quest games is quite a unique approach too.

 

I'm a big of Terry Pratchett's work so I really should get around to it. Although its a children's book (I guess when it was released I was 10 or 11) I've always really enjoyed The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. Its incredibly inventive and surreal. I still remember laughing out loud in the school library, about the Rat's named after tins of food. Simple but very effective. Pratchett was such a great mind.

 

26 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

Cool - seems okay to jump in on 5 then - I've done all the Monkey Island games - though I think I did them out of order! - so if they're in that kind of mould, I'd imagine I get it - some callback stuff for the veterans, but not enough to be too noticeable for the new lot 1f44d.png

 

You pretty much hit the nail on the head yeah. There are a few Easter Eggs and references to the past but nothing that will leave you scratching your head so much you end up with a clump of hair in your palm!!  I've played all the Monkey Island games in a weird order too. I played 3 then 4, then 1 and 2 and then 5. As you said, its just some nice bit of nuggety nostalgia goodness for the veteran's of the series whilst still being accommodating to newcomers. I think that's the right approach to be honest.

 

 

Edited by rjkclarke
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, rjkclarke said:

 

Yeah we're pretty much on the same page on that one then. Although I haven't played the Discworld point and click games. I've always wanted to, Its one of those that just got away from me I suppose. Nothing to stop me playing them at some point though. Have you played the newer version of King's Quest? I thought that was one of the best utilisations of the "Episodic" formula for quite some time. I really hope it gets a sequel of some sort. The way that connects to the other King's Quest games is quite a unique approach too.

 

I'm a big of Terry Pratchett's work so I really should get around to it. Although its a children's book (I guess when it was released I was 10 or 11) I've always really enjoyed The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. Its incredibly inventive and surreal. I still remember laughing out loud in the school library, about the Rat's named after tins of food. Simple but very effective. Pratchett was such a great mind.

 

I haven't played the new Kings Quest - I think it's on my wishlist (in a sea of other stuff! should get to it sooner or later though)

 

TBH - the Discworld games were good - but the first one is certainly the most memorable - I think most of the parts I really remember liking are all from that first one - it's worth checking out for a TP fan, for sure. probably dated as hell now, but still!

 

 

Just now, rjkclarke said:

 

You pretty much hit the nail on the head yeah. There are a few Easter Eggs and references to the past but nothing that will leave you scratching your head so much you end up with a clump of hair in your palm!!  I've played all the Monkey Island games in a weird order too. I played 3 then 4, then 1 and 2 and then 5. As you said, its just some nice bit of nuggety nostalgia goodness for the veteran's of the series whilst still being accommodating to newcomers. I think that's the right approach to be honest.

 

Cool cool, cheers ?☺️?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, DrBloodmoney said:

I haven't played the new Kings Quest - I think it's on my wishlist (in a sea of other stuff! should get to it sooner or later though)

 

That's always the problem with wishlists and backlogs isn't it. Just one of those things you eventually get around to. King's Quest is great though, I'm looking forward to reviewing that actually. Quite a lot of still feels quite fresh in my mind. Plus you can't really go wrong with Christopher Lloyd venturing into the adventure game genre again. Man would I love a Toonstruck re-release/ remaster.

 

Funnily enough your current top boy Prey is pretty high on my wishlist I've been meaning to pick up a copy for years now. I'm sure once I get and play Dishonoured 2 that should send me back on the old Arkane swing.

 

Loved your most recent scientific endeavour by the way. I really enjoyed the in depth deep dive on Shadow of the Colossus. It reminded me actually, that I have both of them reviewed and all ready to stick in this thread at some point. I'd completely forgotten I hadn't posted them yet. Quite looking forward to reading your thoughts on Enigmatis 2 - I think those 3 games are fairly high quality in some aspects as far as Artifex Mundi titles go.

 

1 hour ago, DrBloodmoney said:

TBH - the Discworld games were good - but the first one is certainly the most memorable - I think most of the parts I really remember liking are all from that first one - it's worth checking out for a TP fan, for sure. probably dated as hell now, but still!

 

That's good to know thanks, I'm fairly sure one of my friends has them, so I might see if I can borrow them at some point. Agreed,some of those old PC adventure titles have aged like milk, I used to be very fond of one that was set on the Titanic, which I tried to replay a few years ago and that was, well it was something put it that way haha.

Edited by rjkclarke
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, rjkclarke said:

 

That's always the problem with wishlists and backlogs isn't it. Just one of those things you eventually get around to. King's Quest is great though, I'm looking forward to reviewing that actually, Quite a lot of still feels quite fresh in my mind. Plus you can't really go wrong with Christopher Lloyd venturing into the adventure game genre again. Man would I love a Toonstruck re-release/ remaster.


God, tell me about it - I remember when I was hearing podcasts on games lamenting how Covid-19 will mean theres a big lull on new games getting released for a couple of years, and my first thought being “Thank God, now I might actually get a chance to reduce my backlog a little!”

 

 

1 minute ago, rjkclarke said:

Funnily enough your current top boy Prey is pretty high on my wishlist I've been meaning to pick up a copy for years now. I'm sure once I get and play Dishonoured 2 that should me back on the old Arkane swing.

 

Oh man - Dishonoured 2 is in my next batch, so I won’t go into detail here, but I will say this - across every game I’ve played, and across every genre, Dishonoured 2 has one level in it that I would genuinely consider to be the greatest single level of a videogame ever designed - the clockwork mansion.

 

It. Is. Incredible. 
 

Seriously - I’ve played through it many times over, and every time I’m like “how the hell did they manage to design this and make it work?”

 

 

 

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

God, tell me about it - I remember when I was hearing podcasts on games lamenting how Covid-19 will mean theres a big lull on new games getting released for a couple of years, and my first thought being “Thank God, now I might actually get a chance to reduce my backlog a little!”

 

Absolutely. I was thinking similar things, I did reduce it by quite a lot and then I ended up just buying a load more things I realistically don't ever have enough time to actually play. Its such a vicious cycle.

 

I think the rise of really strong indie developers hasn't helped peoples backlog management any I don't think. Its often too tempting to just pick up their games at an affordable price - especially if you are already a fan of them and enjoy the content/ stories that they have to tell.  All the while there are still waves and waves of AAA titles that seem to get released all over the place. Although I'll be honest I don't really buy AAA titles day one these days -  I figure by the time I've cleared my backlog enough to have the focus to play them they'll usually be substantially cheaper. I've literally had Dishonoured 2 in its shrink wrap for years at this point. Shame on me haha.

 

21 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

Oh man - Dishonoured 2 is in my next batch, so I won’t go into detail here, but I will say this - across every game I’ve played, and across every genre, Dishonoured 2 has one level in it that I would genuinely consider to be the greatest single level of a videogame ever designed - the clockwork mansion.

 

I knew you were going to say the clockwork mansion before I'd even read the end of that paragraph! One of my friends said almost exactly the same thing you did about it. (Maybe they are a time travelling shapeshifting Parrot?) Thankfully I pretty much know nothing of it outside of the odd thing I've heard. The astounding amount of high praise it gets does make me want to really bump it up the list of things to get to. I expect your Dishonoured 2 review is going to be a very fascinating read, I'm looking forward to that one.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said:

 

I haven't played the new Kings Quest - I think it's on my wishlist (in a sea of other stuff! should get to it sooner or later though)

Kings Quest is great and makes you really think outside of the box sometimes. Comes with amazing voice acting.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Grotz99 said:

Kings Quest is great and makes you really think outside of the box sometimes. Comes with amazing voice acting.

 

I'll second that one - it really does. Especially that suitcase puzzle in I think Chapter 4. I thought that that was really creatively put together. The voice acting is top notch, I think more people might have played King's Quest if it had a platinum, I know that's a blocker for some people.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...