DrBloodmoney's Super Scientific Ranking of Games!

[SoliDeoGloriaIHS]

@DrBloodmoney I played....or should I say "experienced" Proteus a few months back and enjoyed it quite a lot for what it is.  Your review is spot on.  Is it a game?  Is it simply just a virtual experience?  I don't know for sure and I don't care.  I've always considered video games, on one level or another, to be an art form - interactive art, I believe.  Is Proteus a work of art then?  I would say so.  I, too, 100%ed the game.  It probably took me somewhere's between 5 and 7 hours and I enjoyed that time.  I found it to be a relaxing, meditative experience.  A welcome change from the shooters and fighting and what-not. 

[DrBloodmoney]

13 minutes ago, Spider-Man916 said:

@DrBloodmoney I played....or should I say "experienced" Proteus a few months back and enjoyed it quite a lot for what it is.  Your review is spot on.  Is it a game?  Is it simply just a virtual experience?  I don't know for sure and I don't care.  I've always considered video games, on one level or another, to be an art form - interactive art, I believe.  Is Proteus a work of art then?  I would say so.  I, too, 100%ed the game.  It probably took me somewhere's between 5 and 7 hours and I enjoyed that time.  I found it to be a relaxing, meditative experience.  A welcome change from the shooters and fighting and what-not. 

Absolutely - with no great mystery to solve, planet to save or challenge to overcome, you aren’t coming away with any ‘war stories’ to tell, or accomplishments to brag about…

…but then, going for a walk in the countryside doesn’t give any of those things either. That’s not to say doing so is pointless or lacking value though.

 

Proteus is really a thing that, I think, what you get from it is what you choose to interpret and take away from it - and, regardless of whether someone enjoys it - that is art. 

Edited June 20, 2021 by DrBloodmoney

[SoliDeoGloriaIHS]

1 minute ago, DrBloodmoney said:

Absolutely - with no great mystery to solve, planet to save or challenge to overcome, you aren’t coming away with any ‘war stories’ to tell, or accomplishments to brag about…

…but then, going for a walk in the countryside doesn’t give any of those things either. That’s not to say doing so is pointless or lacking value though.

 

Proteus is really a thing that, I think, what you get from it is what you choose to interpret and take away from it - and, regardless of whether someone enjoys it - that is art. 

Agreed. ??

[totakos1]

I don’t know if you have a “ schedule “ or something  for reviews but what’s your opinion about The surge? I played 2 and I liked it am I going to like 1?

[DrBloodmoney]

54 minutes ago, totakos1 said:

I don’t know if you have a “ schedule “ or something  for reviews but what’s your opinion about The surge? I played 2 and I liked it am I going to like 1?

I don’t have a schedule, though if you’d like, I can add The Surge to the priority rankings - which means I’ll try to get to it in the next few batches?

 

I can say though - for what it’s worth as a pre-science preview ? - I liked the Surge 2 quite a bit… but thought the first game was even better!

 

 

Edited June 20, 2021 by DrBloodmoney

[totakos1]

Yeah sounds interesting to see your scientific review about it,whenever you get the chance!

[AJ_Radio]

11 hours ago, Spider-Man916 said:

@DrBloodmoney I played....or should I say "experienced" Proteus a few months back and enjoyed it quite a lot for what it is.  Your review is spot on.  Is it a game?  Is it simply just a virtual experience?  I don't know for sure and I don't care.  I've always considered video games, on one level or another, to be an art form - interactive art, I believe.  Is Proteus a work of art then?  I would say so.  I, too, 100%ed the game.  It probably took me somewhere's between 5 and 7 hours and I enjoyed that time.  I found it to be a relaxing, meditative experience.  A welcome change from the shooters and fighting and what-not. 

 

11 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said:

Absolutely - with no great mystery to solve, planet to save or challenge to overcome, you aren’t coming away with any ‘war stories’ to tell, or accomplishments to brag about…

…but then, going for a walk in the countryside doesn’t give any of those things either. That’s not to say doing so is pointless or lacking value though.

 

Proteus is really a thing that, I think, what you get from it is what you choose to interpret and take away from it - and, regardless of whether someone enjoys it - that is art. 

 

Games like Flower and Journey do a great job in expressing the art form. Then there is stuff like Aab's Animals where you get all the trophies in five minutes. Nothing but looking at a cat.

 

The World of Nubla, despite how easy it is, can also be considered a work of art.

[Guest]

Proteus was produced by just two guys, there's a particularly ravishing soundtrack that gives me a huge sense of contemplation, it's the kind of thing that stays forever tucked away in a special little place in my heart.

[DrBloodmoney]

On 20/06/2021 at 10:06 PM, totakos1 said:

Yeah sounds interesting to see your scientific review about it,whenever you get the chance!

 

added to the Priority list with your name ?

[DrBloodmoney]

On 21/06/2021 at 7:01 AM, AJ_Radio said:

Games like Flower and Journey do a great job in expressing the art form.

 

Certainly agree on Journey - I found the message of that game really hit me exactly right - and was pretty powerful in the way it did it.

 

Flower... I don't know...

I've always secretly wondered if I'm just missing something with that game.

It looks pretty, sure, and I certainly didn't dislike it - but I do remember back when it was often held up as an example of artistic expression in video-games -  I never quite understood why. What was it actually expressing?

I could never really discern any actual message it was trying to convey - unless, of course, the message was simply "videogames don't have to have guns" which, I guess was of some value back when it came out, and there were less mainstream games of that type?

[DrBloodmoney]

 

 ?? NEW SCIENTIFIC RESULTS ARE IN! ??

 

 

Hello Science-Lads and Science-Lassies, as promised (and in some cases requested), here are the latest results of our great scientific endeavour!

 

 

 

Return of the Obra Dinn

 

Summary: 

One of the hardest things to do in videogames is to follow up a wildly successful and critically acclaimed debut game.

It's hard enough for larger studios - many take the 'easy' route of following their debut with a direct sequel - but for many of the auteur, one-man-band indie developers, that is not a route they wish to take, and for good reason. If you are known for only one game, and your second game is a direct sequel, you run the risk of being 'typecast' for the duration of your career. Most elect to do a completely new IP, and expand the scope of their vision dramatically to make use of the significant reduction on financial barriers their prior success facilitates. 
Sometimes it works out marvellously, (Johnathon Blow's sophomore effort The Witness, for example,) and sometimes less so (Mike Bithell's follow-up to excellent platformer Thomas Was Alone was the much grander, but ultimately far less memorable or interesting Volume.)

Luckily, Lucas Pope, much lauded for his blistering explosion onto the indie scene with the depressing and alarmingly good bureaucracy/misery simulator Paper, Please, falls in the former camp. 

Return of the Obra Dinn is a phenomenal piece of work. 

 

Five years after its mysterious disappearance, East India trade ship the Obra Dinn has reappeared, floating off the coast of England. Dispatched by the East India Company, the player takes the role of an insurance inspector, who's role is to establish what happened, who or what is responsible, and determine which crewmen's families should receive what payouts from the insurance policies held on the ship. Through use of a magical pocket-watch, (which allows the player to view still-image visions of any corpse found's last moments, along with a short audio clip,) and a decidedly un-magical notebook featuring some basic information on the crew as held by the East India Company upon disembarkation, the task essentially boils down to a checklist - the player must identify who each portrait on the book is, what their role was, and how they died.

 

It is a simple premise, yet one I have never really seen done before. In some sense, the game breaks down like a combination of the old Guess Who children's game, a photo-hunt game, and a massive, four-dimensional sudoku puzzle. The game does little in the way of specifically hand-holding or tutorialising exactly which details the player should be concentrating on to identify or narrow down the specific identities of the crew, and that as absolutely by design. What become clear as the player progresses, is that the answer to the question is: everything.

Absolutely nothing in the game is incidental or accidental. There is no one, or two, or even dozen things that are 'most useful' in sorting out who is who and what fate befell them - every single detail of the ship, and of each memory can be important, yet very rarely is one detail or clue a 'rosetta stone' in and of itself. 
Throughout my time with the game I made use of everything, from how someone addressed another character, to the clothes they wore, to their location on the boat, to their proximity to another person, to their accent, to the location of their bunk, to their manner of death, to the number of empty bottles or the size of their poker winnings or the presence of a musical instrument in their sleeping quarters in aid of identifying who they were, and each correct identification would scratch off just enough information on someone else to narrow their details down and allow me to progress.

 

The manner in which the player is rewarded and informed of their success (or lack thereof) is - much like the game itself - both simple, and incredibly well thought out and implemented. 
The most obvious flaw in games like Obra Dinn, which rely on identifying correct answers from a list of presets, is that the ability is left for the player to 'cheese' the answers - simply keep inputting different answers until the correct one is hit and the game tell them so. 
In Obra Dinn, that is rendered impossible, by an alarmingly simple, yet clever method - the notebook in which the player identifies the crew and manners of deaths does 'lock-in' correct answers - but only in groups of three. That means the player can tell if they have gone wrong somewhere, (if they get four or five entries filled out, and nothing has locked in,) and knows they need to revisit some previous incorrect assumption, but is never told "this one is wrong" specifically. On the flip side, as each batch of three answers locks in, the player is able to confirm they are on the right path, but nothing more of the game is 'given away'.

It is a brilliant idea, and one that means the player can chew away at the grand puzzle for a long time, never feeling like they are being led by the hand or guided, yet safe in the knowledge that, if an error is made, they will not be allowed to progress too far along the wrong path before realising, and being given the chance to course correct.

On the artistic side, the game is as simple, effective and utterly unique as it is from a conceptual gameplay point of view. The look of the game is, mesmerisingly good. Base on a "1-bit" monochromatic aesthetic drawn from old Apple computers, every static screenshot looks like a pre-rendered shot from 1985, yet in motion, the game is in full 3D. The ultra-low-fi aesthetic has a remarkable level of detail when viewed close-up, meaning subtle clues are easily hidden around the remarkably well realised ship.

 

The sound is fantastic - the musical score is excellent and evocative, and the voice work is absolutely brilliant. This is crucial in the case of Obra Dinn, as the voice work on show in the flashback memories is not simply decoration, ambiance or flavour. A huge amount of the puzzle solving of the game is contingent on the voices being nuanced and pitch-perfect. Accents matter. Identifying who is saying a specific line matters. Tone, tenor and the level of panic - subtle or overt - matters. 
Hearing every little crunch, floorboard squeak and wave crash is important in puzzling out what was happening n the still-scene, and each of these little auditory vignettes will likely be played and replayed dozens of times as the player works to identify what is happening to whom, and when, and how, and why.
And it all works. 
That is really incredible to think about, when you consider the lengths other, far more graphically realistic games working in similar 'detection' flavour have to go to, and still fail to match Obra Dinn.

Let's take, for a moment, a reasonable comparison game - Team Bondi's LA Noire. That game also relies on 'subtle' auditory cues for the player (in that case, in identifying whether an NPC is telling the truth.) The game had, in contrast to Obra Dinn, a near infinite budget, and a significant bench of Hollywood-grade actors at it's disposal, and yet, even in the much more limited scope of single, discrete 'cases' it had so little faith in it's ability to covey the subtleties in its auditory performances, that it consistently fell back on using over-the-top, cringe-inducing facial ticks and giant, unsubtle eye-movements to hammer home their point. In many cases, a Neon sign flashing "I AM LYING" would have been more subtle. Without the high-quality facial mapping and realistic graphical style, Obra Dinn still manages to come off as vastly more realistic and credible in it's performances than that game ever did. 
In that game, you feel like your 'detective' work was in figuring out what game-designer is trying to tell you. In Obra Dinn, you feel like an actual detective.

 

There is a slight problem with the game from a repeatability stand-point - because the game and its characters are so memorable, and because in solving the game, the player will have had to become so familiar with each memory, it does render repeat plays something of a dead-end. Returning to the game would be a little like returning to a crossword puzzle - even if you have erased the answers, the muscle memory of how to solve each clue remains. However, this is an issue inherent to the puzzle game genre generally, and Obra Dinn is arguably more repeatable than many others, simply by virtue of the great visuals and audio. Even replaying quickly, knowing a lot of the answers, still has plenty to enjoy and appreciate all over again. 

As an overall package, I think Obra Dinn is a marvel. Most puzzle games are a series of discrete puzzles, and often, as they get towards the end, those puzzles can lose a little focus or fun as they begin to combine too many concepts into one puzzle. In Obra Dinn, the entire game is one large puzzle, yet it never feels overwhelming. The solution never seems out of reach, it just seems grand.

Getting it wrong never feels like a failure, but getting it right feels like a great success, and that is the pinnacle that most puzzle games are aiming for, and few ever actually realise, for a simple reason. It's hard as fuck to do. Return of the Obra Dinn makes it look easy.

 

 

The Ranking:

In terms of 3D, story-based puzzle games, the highest mark on the list so far that compares is probably The Spectrum Retreat, but, as much as I liked that game, Obra Dinn is on an entirely different level.

 

Much higher up, there are some similarities to excellent space-based and exploration puzzler Observation, but that game, while great, and featuring a story I liked a lot, is not anywhere close to Obra Dinn either. It has great visuals, but they are more in the 'realistic' realm, and as such, certainly less memorable or stand-out than Obra Dinn's signature look, and the voice work in that game, while of excellent quality, is artistic flair. In Obra Dinn, it is both artistic flair, and required function, which is much harder to pull off.

 

As we work upwards, matchups with bigger, grander games keep coming, but with each, some flaws exist, which may be minor in the grand scheme of those specific games, but stand out when compared with a shorter, but near flawless experience such as Obra Dinn.

 

In the end, without any further puzzle-game comparison points, it comes down to other aspects. Hotline Miami also features an incredible art-style, used fantastically, and has its own auditory flair in the form of its incredible cultivated soundtrack. It is the first game to truly give me grief in a matchup.
In the end, Obra Dinn takes it, as, while vastly less repeatable, the satisfaction of solving Obra Dinn outmatches even the satisfaction of finishing Hotline Miami, and Hotline, while great, does have some low points across its 10 hour length. Obra Dinn has, across its 10-ish hours, none.

 

The difficulty of the bout though, means Obra Dinn finds its well-deserved spot, just above Hotline Miami.

 

 

 

 

 

Shape of the World

 

Summary: 

Shape of the World, when viewed through the lens of having recently played Proteus, is an interesting lesson in the concept of "be careful what you wish for".

While I very much enjoyed Proteus, the most consistent (and broadly accurate) criticisms levelled at that game was that, for all it's interesting and quirky beauty, distinct art-style and deliberate, meditative pace, the lack of any 'gaming' hooks to it ultimately left some people wanting. While I don't entertain the truly reductive, "This isn't a game, where is the Rocket Launcher" type arguments, I can at least understand some desire for a little more structure from those who are on board for the tone and style, but just felt the game was a little too free-form for their tastes.
Well, the answer to those desires is Shape of the World.

 

The environments of Shape of the World are beautiful. It's a very different art-style to Proteus. Both are bright, vivid affairs, but - in contrast to Proteus' pixelated landscapes, Shape of the World's ones are, while still low-poly, crisp, clean and sharp. Both games make bold use of colour, but where Proteus plays in block, primary colours, Shape of the World uses a full spectrum of pastel hues to evoke the differences in tone of its areas. It looks beautiful - stylistically putting me in mind of Dear Esther, if it was rendered using the same engine and style as Firewatch - caves are dark and mysterious and gloomy, vista's are rich and detailed in their low-poly way, and plains and beaches wild and freeing. 

 

As stated, the primary aspects of the gameplay are similar to Proteus, in the sense that Shape of the World is also a slow-paced, meditative experience, using exploration of a curious and mysterious landscape as its stock and trade. However, where Proteus took the bold, confident 'anti-goals' stance of simply presenting its experience and allowing the player to be entirely in charge of how they choose to interact with it, Shape of the World elects instead to attach some actionable, (if esoteric,) goals to the progression.

This is not an inherently bad idea, however, the repetitive nature of them across the length of the game does tend to drag what could be a perfectly good 'exploration and awe' game into the realms of a rather lesser 'find the goal' type affair. 
Essentially, progression through each area is tied to finding specific triangular markers, and doing some kind of mild platforming and interaction with the environment around them, to reveal a set of stairs and allow the player to move on. The first time this happens, when the player stumbles across one, it feels mysterious and wondrous, but by the time the player has done the second one, and realises this is the primary goal of the game, it does lessen the overall experience. Once it is made clear that progression is the goal, and how to go about that, the priorities of the player naturally shift - away from the best aspects of the game (appreciation of and exploration of the beautiful environments) and towards the more pedestrian (find the exit puzzle and solve it.) That would be a non-issue if the puzzles themselves were interesting, but they never really are. 3D Platforming is never a big source of enjoyment for me, (and 1st-person 3D platforming even less so,) and in a game where death is impossible, it can be a source of frustration. Falling from a height after a long section is irritating when you do not die and respawn, but rather, fall all the way back to the ground and simply have to start over.

 

Another difference in comparison to Proteus, is the nature of the environment. There is certainly more to do in Shape of the World, and more in the way of interactivity and impact the player has on the environment, but the increased longevity one might assume to come with increased 'gamification' is largely offset by the static nature of the environment. Where Proteus is procedurally generated, and as such, each new game gives a slightly different island to explore, Shape of the World is not. Yes, there is more to do and see, but it does not change from playthrough to playthrough, and so the smaller environment of Proteus feels far more replayable. 

 

Overall, I liked Shape of the World, and certainly appreciated the art-style, ambient sound and meditative pacing, and it did, at times, evoke a similar feeling to that that Proteus gave me, but there is much less in the way of an actual message here, and the addition of the more 'gameplay' aspects are not particularly engaging. 
Where Proteus had none, it felt like I was free to truly be set adrift in its peculiar world and to bask in it. In Shape of the World, I always felt like my exploration was tempered by the game's desire for me to complete specific goals. That would have been fine, except those goals just weren't interesting. The weakest aspect of the game was a constant distraction from the strongest ones - and resulted in an experience I am not drawn to repeat in the way I was with Proteus.

 

 

The Ranking:

It will come as a surprise to no one after reading that review that Proteus is the obvious comparison! Shape of the World does not beat Proteus, as the aspects it does potentially out-do that game on, (there are some environments where the art does peak at a higher point than Proteus does, and there is certainly more variety of environments,) the weak gameplay additions and lack of repeatability hurt it.

 

Working down the list, there is little direct comparison, so it comes down to "would I replay this game before replaying Shape of the World?"

The first game to which the answer is "No", is Arcade Archives: A-Jax, and so Shape of the World finds its spot just above that game.

 

 

 

 

The Last Campfire

 

Summary: 

The Last Campfire, from Joe Danger and No Man's Sky developer Hello Games is a puzzle game.

As any Science-Chum following along with this thread knows, that is a favoured genre anyway, and often, in reviewing and ranking puzzle games, the most important thing that any puzzle game has to get right is the level of challenge.

If a puzzle game is too easy, it can very quickly become monotonous or pedestrian. Too difficult, and it simply elicits frustration, or encourages guide use.

 

The Last Campfire is quite an easy puzzle game - certainly none of it's 40-odd discrete, varied and distinct 3D puzzle rooms ever took longer than a few minutes, or 3 or 4 tries to conquer, and so in some sense, it might be argued that the game is failing on one of the core elements of its chosen genre, however, to simply evaluate The Last Campfire's worth based on its puzzle offering is to rather miss the point of the game.

 

Most 3D puzzle games play in the purely cerebral arena - whether they are entirely abstracted, as in cases like Q.U.B.E, Chroma Gun or The Turing Test, or incorporate some story elements, such as The Spectrum Retreat or Portal, generally even the narrative elements are mostly of an intellectual spectrum.
Only in rare cases (such as The Witness, or this game,) is the puzzle genre used to explore a more emotional, and - dare I say - spiritual side of the human condition.

 

In The Last Campfire, the player controls an odd little in a body-sock robe, a 'Forlorn' named Ember, who, upon becoming lost, and having to embark on an esoteric journey, encounters many other Forlorn, each of whom is dealing, in their own way, with the games central themes - hopelessness, ennui, and a feeling of being lost.
The game's overarching message - that being lost is okay, and not to let the darkness around you or the lack of direction descent into listlessness and despair - is fairly clear and broadcast, but where the game excels in in the implementation. Each Forlorn has subtly different shades of sadness and hopelessness, and the indomitable spirit of Ember affects each one slightly differently. The Forlorn are not angry or overtly miserable, indeed, most speak to their quiet sadness in soft, soothing, Scandinavian-flecked and self-aware tones, and while one or two of these might have felt rather on-the-nose, the tapestry that is made by their myriad subtle variations and place in an overall theme works very well. 

The fact that the puzzles themselves are relatively simple affairs is less of a downside, since the most rewarding part of solving one is not necessarily a feeling of victory, but one of gladness at helping a little friend who is down on his luck or feeling lost or abandoned.

The game controls very well, moves nicely, and the puzzles are extremely varied and mostly unique. This isn't a case of 'sets' of puzzles with common mechanics - each one is hand crafted and bespoke, and each new concept is used for as many puzzles as remains interesting - in some cases, just one - than discarded. That means there is no chance to ever get bored of a mechanic ,and each new puzzle feels like a new exercise for the mind, even if it is a light workout at best.

 

The game looks gorgeous - the aesthetic is well realised, and there is artistic flair in the implementation. The word and the Forlorn fit together with a stylistic cohesion, and it is remarkable how much variety in character Hello is able to imbue each individual Forlorn with, given that they all look and dress broadly the same.

 

All in all, I think the game is really excellent - the easier puzzles mean the game is good of all the family - indeed, I think that giving this game to a child would be the perfect place for it - not only is it pitched that way difficulty-wise, but the messages it conveys are very well rounded and important ones, and the themes would likely hit a child in such a way as to genuinely have value as as both a cerebral, and an emotional learning and teaching tool.

 

 

The Ranking:

In comparisons to other puzzle games, the most appropriate one on the current list is The Spectrum Retreat, as that game also delves a little into the more story-driven and emotional side with its narrative elements, but I think The Last Campfire beats it out. While The Spectrum Retreat has much more satisfying puzzles, The Last Campfire does a much better job of interweaving the puzzles themselves with the overall narrative and themes, and the game looks and feels better.

 

Above that, in terms of kid-friendly games, there are two that stand out - Mini Ninjas, and Ratchet and Clank. In both cases, those games lack the emotional side The Last Campfire has, but in the case of Mini Ninja's I think there isn't enough great other aspects to compensate. In Ratchet's case, the gameplay still ensures it beats The Last Campfire out.

 

That puts us somewhere in between those games. I think for all the positives of Concrete Genie, I take some issue with the actual message of that game, and think it is not necessarily a healthy one to convey to it's target audience - at least, not a very nuanced one, as opposed to the genuinely interesting takes The Last Campfire has.

Critter Crunch is also child-friendly in some ways, and an amazing puzzle game, but it can be stupefyingly difficult, which wold tend to shut out a certain segment of the audience, and has no narrative or thematic elements to offer.

The Last Campfire, therefore, find's its spot, just below Ratchet and Clank, but above Critter Crunch.

 

 

 

 

Tomb Raider: Legend

 

Summary: 

Lara Croft, the eponymous Tomb Raider, has, at this point, had 3 distinct incarnations.

There is the voluptuous, gun-totting, plummy-voiced bad-ass of the early years, the isometric, puzzle-solving, a-little-help-from-my-friends version of the (excellent) 'Lara Croft' games, and the naive-but-capable, more rounded and human young girl incarnation of the most recent trilogy.

 

I am a fan of all three, though I do feel that the former is the least interesting of the lot. That being said, Tomb Raider Legend is, to my mind, the best game in the considerable stack to feature that incarnation of our heroine.

 

In 2006, the Tomb Raider games were floundering. Core Design, who had created the character in the great Tomb Raider in 1996, then almost perfected the genre of the era, peaking in quality with Tomb Raider II in 1997, had slowly descended into near oblivion with a series of progressively less good (and less well received) sequels, culminating in the god-awful series nadir Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness in 2003.

 

After a 3 year hiatus, and a change of developer, Crystal Dynamics entered the fray, bringing Lara back form the depths of obscurity with the Tomb Raider: Legend.

 

Legend is a game very clearly in the same linearity and genre as the previous 9 entires - it moves in a similar fashion, it's levels are of similar lengths, and the core elements of the game - double gun totting, platforming in huge environments, giant, gravity defying boobs - are all present, but not since Tomb Raider II, had these elements come together into such a well rounded, varied and satisfying product to actually play. Personally, as much as I loved Tomb Raider II, I would argue Tomb Raider Legend actually outdoes it, even offsetting the expected progression inherent to the 9 year difference in release dates.

 

The game is remarkable varied in locations, even for a series know for exactly that. Lara moves and platforms with a fluid, easy finesse that the game never had before (Lara no longer moves as if doing so on invisible graph-paper,) and combat - always the relative low point in the games - while still arguably the weakest aspect of the game, is at least, finally, genuinely fun.
 
Crystal Dynamics do seem to have put a lot of effort into ensuring that all the best aspects of the series - by that point, merely a memory of better games past, are retained, and rather than redesigning the series wholesale, elect to simply eschew the bad stuff, and finesse the good. The result is a game that is difficult to define exactly what is specifically different, but inarguably the most refined, smart and enjoyable version of a formula that hadn't paid off so well in years. the story is good - well paced and well told, and cut scenes are nicely done. Lara is a likeable character again (she hadn't really been for a game or two.)

 

The game looks very nice - for the era, sure, but actually, still holds up fairly well. Environments are large and interesting, and while character models are a little blocky when viewed through a 2021 lens, they are still remarkably well done as compared to games of the era.
Platforming is about as refined and finessed as any 3D platform game was in this pre-Uncharted era, (a year or so later, that game would redefine how 3D platforming was handled across the industry.)

 

All in all, in the 2021 landscape, Tomb Raider Legend is, to my mind, the best example of the 'old' Lara for anyone to play. While Tomb Raider II is arguably the better game given it's era, and certainly the more important, the finesse that Crystal Dynamic's fresh input gave to a tired formula was so far beyond what was required, that their first entry feels like taking the series to where it was always trying to go, but Core Design was simply never able to realise.

 

 

The Ranking:

With no other Tomb Raider games on the current list, similar era platformer combat games are the best comparisons, and on that note, the obvious ones to look at are the Prince of Persia trilogy. 

To my mind, Tomb Raider Legend is a better game, pound for pound, that The Warrior Within, certainly, but not quite reaching the heights of The Two Thrones. That leaves The Sands of Time as the difficult one. 

 

Both games were responsible for revitalising a series - in the case of Prince of Persia, one that had been a little forgotten, in Tomb Raider's case, one that probably should have been forgotten, but instead kept digging its own grave.

 

After some thought, I do actually thing Legends deserves it's place above The Sands of Time, for two reasons. 
Firstly, while I loved the Sands of Time, it's lineage from the original source is both more convoluted, and easier, given that there was not the anchor of a terrible previous entry still hanging around its neck. The worst that could be said was that people didn't remember the Prince. Lara, everyone remembered - and negatively, after Angel of Darkness. Revitalising a series is harder when all eyes on you, looking to find failure. 
Secondly, Tomb Raider Legends is a more varied and interesting game to actually play - it's story is weaker, but plotted better, and the globe-trotting nature of the story allows for a greater variety, not only of environments, but of gameplay. 

 

As a result, Tomb Raider Legend wins, but it is a marginal victory, and so it takes its spot directly above The Sands of Time.

 

 

 

 

 

WWE: Legends of WrestleMania

 

Summary: 

Every now and then, a notion takes me to check out a genre or series that I am not particularly familiar with. 
When that notion takes me, and why, and about what, I'm never certain, but when it does strike, I like to try and follow it through.

It's a mentality that has bourn tremendous fruit at times - checking out the character action platformers of the PS1 and PS2 era's long after the fact awoke my love of Ratchet and Clank, the seemingly random thought that led me to try out Vib Ribbon back in the day opened up rhythm games for me, and checking out Rogue Legacy on a whim lead me down a path towards Rogue-Likes becoming one of my favourite genres!

 

Of course, those are examples of when such thoughts paid off.
Those were the good ones.

Unfortunately, for every Yin, there is an inevitable Yang.

Such was my experience when I, as neither a Wrestling guy, a Wrestling Games guy, or even a Sports Games guy, decided that, upon seeing, finally, a WWE game come along that might offer the best chance of hooking me, (I did have some vestigial memories of watching wrestling when I was six or seven years old, and did have a marginal familiarity with some wrestlers of the era - The Undertaker, Hogan, Brett Hart etc,) I decided there would never be a better time to throw caution to the wind, ignore the general critical consensus, and sample the games Yuke's were putting out.

 

Now, of course, it must be remembered when reading this review - I do not really care about wrestling - nor do I have really any knowledge of current WWE.

I am looking at this game from a purely gameplay point of view, and from the standpoint of someone who - while respecting the craft and artistry of the performance of Wrestling (I am not one of those tiresome folks who complain's that, because Wrestling is pre-written, that is is somehow worthless. Shakespeare is also pre-written, but that doesn't diminish the performances given when I see Hamlet) - is not coming in with any level of pre-set fandom.

 

So. On the plus side - there was enough in this package to get me genuinely interested, even with my very marginal knowledge of Wrestling. Andre the Giant's prominent placement on the cover proved that this was going to require no real knowledge of current WWE, but would be more of a tribute to the early days of Wrestlemania. 
On that front, the game delivers. It features a significant amount of clips and videos of historic matches, all of which are quite well presented, and were certainly the highlight of the package for me. I actually gained a little more interest in the sport as a result of these - and that's not nothing. 

 

However, then I had to play it.

 

Graphically, it was middling to inadequate, even for the time, and things like sound design and music were tepid and uninspired in a way that was really quite depressing, given that the game is designed as a celebration of a much loved sport (Performance? Product? Art-form? - I'm that much of a Wrestling novice that I don't actually know what the proper nomenclature is!)

 

Those things certainly take the wind out of it's sails, but they are nothing on the gameplay.

 

The gameplay in this game is... awful. There is just no other way to say it. 

Slow, plodding, poorly controlling - each match, even on the rare occasion that the wrestlers aren't clipping through one another, or the ropes, or spinning their heads around like the kid in The Exorcist or extending Stretch Armstrong arms around like Octodad, just feels like two fat dads engaging in a semi-awkward Christmas hug.

 

I found it baffling that a game with gameplay this terrible would not only release, but that it would invite it's own ridicule, by including so many great clips of real, awesome looking Wrestling matches, just to act as a reference point to show how woefully inadequate the game is as recreating them. 

 

I remember at the time, asking a friend of mine who is a huge Wrestling fan, and has played a lot of these games, why they didn't put more effort into this one, given that it was marketed as more of a celebration of the glory days, and a way to pull in new audience like me. His answer comes back to me. He simply laughed, and told me - they did. This is - according to him - a fairly good one of the Yuke's offerings. Basically, his take was, Yuke's are incompetent, under-funded and too pressured to meet a release schedule, but that it doesn't matter. If they did make a good one, it wouldn't sell any better than the bad ones do, so why make the effort.

 

A depressing concept, a real insult to fans of WWE, and something that any regular developer should be embarrassed to put out - though from my understanding Yuke's proved long ago, that they are impervious to shame.

It should surprise no one, that this was the last Wrestling game I ever played.

 

 

The Ranking:

I'm not going to beat about the bush here. 

I would much rather play through the entirety of The Mystery of Little Riddle, or even play through all of the Vita Welcome Park than play even a single match of this game.

 

There are, as I see it, only two games that have any possibility of keeping WWE: Legends of Wrestlemania from taking the corn as the current least awesome game - Kick Ass: The Game, and Watchmen: The End is Nigh.

On the one hand, pound for pound, I think I would rather play an hour of this game than an hour of either two current bottom ranked games. 
On the other hand, those were both cheap movie tie-in's and had not real expectation of quality. In both cases, a competent game would have been a bonus, but was not necessarily expected. Each was inexpensive, and relatively throwaway. This game, I paid for a disc. This game, I had some expectations. 
It's failure to deliver is more egregious than either movie tie-in game.

It does, at least, have some awesome wrestling videos in it - and those I enjoyed quite a bit, though I am loathe to include those in a review, simply because if that is the only good thing to say about it (and it is,) I could get the same benefit, and more, by going to YouTube - and You tube didn't cost me a penny.

 

In the end, it has to come down to enjoyment of gameplay, and as piss-poor as this game is, I think it does manage to outdo Kick-Ass: The Game... just. Just by a tiny sliver.

Watchmen, on the other hand, is also terrible, but just, just manages to stay above it, as while it is awful, it is at least awful competently. There are less bugs and glitches, and so it is a slightly less ripe form of rancid.

 

WWE: Legends of Wrestlemania, therefore, manages to escape from the headlock of the 'Current Least Awesome' crown by a tiny margin, taking the silver in the stinky Olympics.

 

 

 

 

 

⚛️⚛️BONUS GAMES!:⚛️⚛️

1 additional game S-Ranked this update!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Astro's Playroom

 

Summary: 

Prior to the release of Astro's Playroom, I would have stated unequivocally that The Playroom - the launch PS4 game showcasing the interplay between the PS4 camera and iPad app - was the gold standard in terms of taking what is ostensibly a hardware introduction and tutorial, adding personality, charm, fun and gamifying it. That product was, in my eyes, the closest any of that rarified sub-genre got to actually managing to stand on its own two feet as a legitimate, quote unquote, 'game'.

 

Well, step aside The Playroom, because your spot just go blown the fuck up!

 

Provided as a PS5 pack-in, and essentially an introduction to the myriad functionality of the new Duel-sense controller, Astro's Playroom would have served its purpose with a few simple mini-games and a half-hour step-by-step guide. Certainly no-one would have complained if that was the case, which is why it is so surprising - and gratifying - to see just how far and above the call of duty Team Asobi decided to go with it.

 

Astro's Playroom is so far beyond mere tutorial that it is genuinely astounding. Serving simultaneously as an in-depth demonstration kiosk for the controller, a fun, and imaginative (if short) platformer, and a lovingly crafted and curated museum of the history of all thing Playstation, it is a success on every front.

 

On the tutorial side, it does exactly what it needs to. I was certainly aware of what the controller was capable of in a broad, academic sense prior to my engagement with Astro's Playroom, but it was only upon playing it that that theoretical knowledge was translated into tactile understanding - and I was consistently surprised and fascinated with the results. From raindrops buzzing different parts of the controller, to different sounds and haptic feedback for different terrains, to spring-effect on the triggers, to trackpad Marble Madness movement, to catapult motions using the motion control to aim, the game packs in a wealth of different ideas, and never stops adding new ones all throughout.
The game is relatively short - clocking in at around 3 hours for a full playthrough, but by the end, I not only felt I had a much more concrete understanding of the possibilities, but my mind was racing with the anticipation of what other games could do with the tech. That is exactly what such a tutorial should do, and Astro's Playroom does it better than any tutorial project I have ever seen.

 

As a platformer, the game works. I am not a big 3D platformer guy, but enjoy them from time to time, and the short length, variety of environments and myriad charming, nostalgia inducing sights to see in Astro's Playroom (more on that in a minute!) kept me more than happy throughout. While there were a few aspects I felt veered a little towards the edges of the controller's capability, for the most part, it was a fun, enjoyable experience.
(The Marble Madness inspired sections, in particular, I found to stretch the capabilities a little too far - several times I found the trackpad on the controller to not be able to keep up, and required the controller to be switched off and on again to 'reset' the configuration, as the 'dead zone' seemed to drift off. To be clear, I don't think this is a fault of my specific controller, as I experienced the same issue, in the same manner, with both the packed in controller, and the one I purchased separately.)

 

The 'curated museum' of the history of Playstation, upon which the entire game is lovingly based, is the absolute strongest arrow in its quiver. 
Each collectible in the game is a painstakingly recreated piece of Playstation hardware, lovingly rendered in 3D, right down to the connection ports, the serial numbers and the disc-tray opening mechanisms. These are not only the big, well known ones, such as the consoles themselves, but include the more bizarre and forgotten entires - the PSP GPS add-on, the PS2 Network Adaptor, the Eye Toy camera etc.

In addition every level is absolutely crammed with Astro's little robot buddies, doing little scenes and actions in reference to many of the platform's tent-pole games. These range from the most obvious (Uncharted, God of War, Tekken) to the most esoteric (Vib Ribbon, Patapon, LocoRoco.) they serve no actual gaming function, yet are the source of the most joy, and biggest talking points in the game. I played the game with Ms. Bloodmoney watching beside me, and without a doubt, my favourite experience with the new console so far, has been our time identifying every one of these little scenes - and feeling my nostalgia-boner grow with each one!

 

The game looks great, (as it, of course, needs to, given it will be 90% of players first glimpse of the capabilities of their new console,) and runs very well. Care has been taken to ensure it works with all the new aspects of the console, such as full integration with the 'activity cards', allowing a player to see immediately (outwith the game) if a friend has bested their time on one of it's challenges, and hop directly to that challenge from outside the game. These aspects, while not on enormous benefit for such a small game, do what they are intended to do - they give a glimpse of the possibilities that other games will be making use of down the line, and help to distinguish a console which, at this point, is most likely being used as a PS4-Pro-Pro by the majority of the user-base, as we bide our time waiting for more PS5 exclusive fare.

 

All in all, Astro's Playroom is an absolute triumph. Setting a new standard for the 'Game as Tutorial' genre - I think future fare of the same category will struggle to match the pace it sets - and functioning as a very enjoyable game to boot.

Well done Team Asobi - more please!

 

 

The Ranking:

Being a small 'game', Astro's won't be tickling the upper end of the current list, but given what it is, it was never supposed to. What it is supposed to do, though, it does magnificently, and goes so far beyond its intended purpose, as to astound.

 

Obvious comparison is The Playroom, and as impressed with that game as I was, Astro's leaves it in the dirt.

 

There is little in the way of other one-to-one comparisons, but going by feel - and taking Astro's as a 3D platformer primarily, I still don't think, of all it's charm, it has enough to it to compete with genuine, full length 3D platformers such as Jak and Daxter. It isn't trying to.

 

That leaves us in the significant gulf in between those two games, and it comes down to charm and feel. running upwards from The Playroom, the first game I find to offer enough charm and solid, fun game mechanics to out-do Astro's short but charming 3 hours is vita-friendly puzzle-platformer Hue, and so Astro's Playroom takes its spot just below that great little game. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So there we have it folks!

 

Thanks to @JoesusHCrust & @TimeLordCrow13y  for putting in requests! 

 

 Prey still cling onto  'Current Most Awesome Game'

 

 Kick Ass: The Game remains the current 'Least Awesome Game', but only just this time!

 

 

 

What games will be coming along next time to challenge for the sweetie... or the pocket lint?

That's up to randomness, me.... and YOU!

 

Remember:

 

 

SPECIAL NOTE

 

If there are any specific games anyone wants to see get ranked sooner rather than later - drop a message, and I'll mark them for 'Priority Ranking'! 

 

The only stipulation is that they must be on my profile, at 100% (S-Rank)....

 and aren't already on the Rankings! 

 

 

 

 

Catch y'all later my Scientific Brothers and Sisters! ☮️

[Together_Comic]

6 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said:

The Ranking:

In terms of 3D, story-based puzzle games, the highest mark on the list so far that compares is probably The Spectrum Retreat, but, as much as I liked that game, Obra Dinn is on an entirely different level.

 

Much higher up, there are some similarities to excellent space-based and exploration puzzler Observation, but that game, while great, and featuring a story I liked a lot, is not anywhere close to Obra Dinn either. It has great visuals, but they are more in the 'realistic' realm, and as such, certainly less memorable or stand-out than Obra Dinn's signature look, and the voice work in that game, while of excellent quality, is artistic flair. In Obra Dinn, it is both artistic flair, and required function, which is much harder to pull off.

 

As we work upwards, matchups with bigger, grander games keep coming, but with each, some flaws exist, which may be minor in the grand scheme of those specific games, but stand out when compared with a shorter, but near flawless experience such as Obra Dinn.

 

In the end, without any further puzzle-game comparison points, it comes down to other aspects. Hotline Miami also features an incredible art-style, used fantastically, and has its own auditory flair in the form of its incredible cultivated soundtrack. It is the first game to truly give me grief in a matchup.
In the end, Obra Dinn takes it, as, while vastly less repeatable, the satisfaction of solving Obra Dinn outmatches even the satisfaction of finishing Hotline Miami, and Hotline, while great, does have some low points across its 10 hour length. Obra Dinn has, across its 10-ish hours, none.

 

The difficulty of the bout though, means Obra Dinn finds its well-deserved spot, just above Hotline Miami.

 

Ranking RotOD has got to be tough.  Its in this weird spot where objectively, this is a 10/10 game (the game is basically perfect.  There's just nothing, that I can identify, wrong with it. On top of that it executes its premise to perfection, has engaging gameplay, and a well told story, like Lucus Pope...WTF man.), but I can see as it starts to match up with some heavy hitters that even though they have more flaws and I'd rate them lower on a 10 scale, they would be higher on my individual list.  For example, looking at the games that you have S ranked and put above it.  I think Obra Dinn is a better game than All 3 Mass Effects individually, The Last of Us, and Shadow of Colossus (which I played back on PS2), but if I were to put them on a list like this, I think I would have it below all of them except The Last of Us (a hot take review coming to a trophy checklist near you soonish).  I think this is what makes experiences like this so neat and why I love reading stuff like your scientific reviews. 

[DrBloodmoney]

35 minutes ago, Together_Comic said:

 

Ranking RotOD has got to be tough.  Its in this weird spot where objectively, this is a 10/10 game (the game is basically perfect.  There's just nothing, that I can identify, wrong with it. On top of that it executes its premise to perfection, has engaging gameplay, and a well told story, like Lucus Pope...WTF man.), but I can see as it starts to match up with some heavy hitters that even though they have more flaws and I'd rate them lower on a 10 scale, they would be higher on my individual list.  For example, looking at the games that you have S ranked and put above it.  I think Obra Dinn is a better game than All 3 Mass Effects individually, The Last of Us, and Shadow of Colossus (which I played back on PS2), but if I were to put them on a list like this, I think I would have it below all of them except The Last of Us (a hot take review coming to a trophy checklist near you soonish).  I think this is what makes experiences like this so neat and why I love reading stuff like your scientific reviews. 

 

It's true - there is a certain inherent ridiculousness to this list because of the massive, disparate differences across genres (which is part of what I love about doing it!).
The question about how well executed a game is in it's chosen genre has to come in, and to be honest, if there was a single factor that seems to rear up as the most common 'deciding factor' looking at the list, that is probably it (with 'variability of play-style', 'replayability', and 'cohesiveness of tone' as equal 'second place' factors)

 

It does make for very strange overall placements of-course, when something like Obra Dinn (which is small, and very specific in it's aims, yet executed flawlessly) come in. It sort of get into the idea of:

"Okay, it's a cooking competition. You've made a lavish, eight course meal, all of which is very good, and this other guy made one bread roll, but it's the most incredible bread roll ever made by man. Who wins?" ?

 

In the end, a lot of it comes down to feel - and of course, these are subjective opinions, but, the one very important thing I would tell people to consider when looking at the list, is not to necessarily look just at the raw ranking, but at the ranking vs. the scope of the game.

 

If the game is a massive, 'Triple A' (God I hate that term), huge budget, 50-60 hour epic, and it is placed 40th, and there is a small, specific, niche or esoteric game from a small dev, and it is placed 41st... while I stand by the ranking, I'd still say the 41st place is potentially a more interesting or better experience - it just has inherent stuff based on size and scope that hold it back a little, you know?

Edited June 25, 2021 by DrBloodmoney

[Together_Comic]

7 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

"Okay, it's a cooking competition. You've made a lavish, eight course meal, all of which is very good, and this other guy made one bread roll, but it's the most incredible bread roll ever made by man. Who wins?"

 

Obviously the Judges ??. Which is a funny parallel, because that would be we the Players who get to enjoy all of these great experiences, and some stinky ones too (As an aside, 2nd worst is almost as frustrating as being 2nd best, poor legends of wrestlemania ?).  

 

10 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

If the game is a massive, 'Triple A' (God I hate that term), huge budget, 50-60 hour epic, and it is placed 40th, and there is a small, specific, niche or esoteric game from a small dev, and it is placed 41st... while I stand by the ranking, I'd still say the 41st place is potentially a more interesting or better experience - it just has inherent stuff based on size and scope that hold it back a little, you know?

 

It definitely makes sense (Im kinda terrified for the gaming industry if Lucus Pope ever gets a team of people together.  Imagine what they could do then ?) .  

 

11 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

'Triple A' (God I hate that term)

 

On an sort of unrelated note, I think 'Triple A' is an interesting scientific anomaly.  It's a category similar to fish, which is not at all useful taxonomically, the same way that 'Triple A' isn't a useful way to describe the way a video game is developed.  That being said, the same way that when people talk about fish, if someone say Triple A, we get a pretty good idea of what kind of games they are talking about.  Humans are neat. 

[DrBloodmoney]

8 minutes ago, Together_Comic said:

 

Obviously the Judges . Which is a funny parallel, because that would be we the Players who get to enjoy all of these great experiences, and some stinky ones too (As an aside, 2nd worst is almost as frustrating as being 2nd best, poor legends of wrestlemania ).  

 

Haha, oh man, that freakin' WWE game ? - I tell you, I'm not even a big fan or Wrestling, and even I felt insulted by the quality of that game. I can only imagine how crushing those games must be for people who are actively invested in the grand shakespearian drama and the performance of the sport.

 

Quote

It definitely makes sense (Im kinda terrified for the gaming industry if Lucus Pope ever gets a team of people together.  Imagine what they could do then ) .  

 

It's true - part of me fears it would be diluted and not work as well... but then, Johnathon Blow got a team, and made The Witness, so greatness isn't always diluted by volume, sometimes it can simply be magnified.

 

Quote

On an sort of unrelated note, I think 'Triple A' is an interesting scientific anomaly.  It's a category similar to fish, which is not at all useful taxonomically, the same way that 'Triple A' isn't a useful way to describe the way a video game is developed.  That being said, the same way that when people talk about fish, if someone say Triple A, we get a pretty good idea of what kind of games they are talking about.  Humans are neat. 

 

It's true - it is an unfortunately useful short-hand - just a pity it means so little really. I mean, when someone says AAA, I know they don't mean something like Obra Dinn, and do mean something like Assassin's Creed of Call of Duty, but it gets a little trickier when it comes to things like - well, Prey. Or Dishonoured. Or Bioshock. 

 

I mean, those are not AAA by any traditional definition, but some folks seem to call them that, and some don't, so it is a little bit wishy-washy as a term!

Edited June 25, 2021 by DrBloodmoney

[grayhammmer]

I saw that you've completed Superliminal, and if you don't mind I would like you to analyze that game next as I've known about it for some time but I don't know if it's worth the 20 dollar price.

Edited June 25, 2021 by grayhammmer

[DrBloodmoney]

7 hours ago, grayhammmer said:

I saw that you've completed Superliminal, and if you don't mind I would like you to analyze that game next as I've known about it for some time but I don't know if it's worth the 20 dollar price.

Absolutely Science Chum - flagged with your name ?

 

oh, and - incase you need a quick answer to the question before I can get to it -

it’s short, but worth the price! ?

[MD_91]

On 25/06/2021 at 4:58 PM, DrBloodmoney said:

 

Haha, oh man, that freakin' WWE game ? - I tell you, I'm not even a big fan of Wrestling, and even I felt insulted by the quality of that game. I can only imagine how crushing those games must be for people who are actively invested in the grand shakespearian drama and the performance of the sport.

 

 

I can't imagine what it's like to experience this game as someone who isn't a fan, at least I had my interest in wrestling to carry me through it and having played nearly every wrestling game I could get my hands on when I was younger some of them were so tragic this probably doesn't even rank in the bottom 5 when it comes to bad ones.

 

It's a shame that they had the chance to appeal to a more casual audience with this game and in trying to make the gameplay more accessible dumbed it down so much that they turned away people like yourself away from the games for life.

[DrBloodmoney]

16 hours ago, MD_91 said:

 

I can't imagine what it's like to experience this game as someone who isn't a fan, at least I had my interest in wrestling to carry me through it and having played nearly every wrestling game I could get my hands on when I was younger some of them were so tragic this probably doesn't even rank in the bottom 5 when it comes to bad ones.

 

It's a shame that they had the chance to appeal to a more casual audience with this game and in trying to make the gameplay more accessible dumbed it down so much that they turned away people like yourself away from the games for life.

As a fan of Wrestling what is your take on the Yuke’s games generally? 
 

Are there any that you would say were objectively ‘good’, or is it more a sliding scale of bad, with only the fandom to keep people buying?

Edited June 27, 2021 by DrBloodmoney

[rjkclarke]

On 25/06/2021 at 9:53 AM, DrBloodmoney said:

Lamb Chop?

 

Great stuff as always Doctor... Now if you can just take a look at this thing I've found........ Oh wait you aren't that kind of Doctor are you... Nevermind

 

In all seriousness though, great reads as usual. I loved the bit on Return of the Orba Din, as a fellow puzzle game enthusiast I think I'm going to have to check that one out. I had no idea it was a puzzle game. In truth, I had no idea whatsoever what it was, I'm glad I do now though.

 

I enjoyed the write up of Tomb Raider: Legend particularly. That's one I'm really fearful of writing myself actually. My favourite actress plays Lara in those games, so I need to figure out a way for it not to just sound like a Keeley Hawes praise fest for paragraphs and paragraphs. I'm perfectly capable of objectivity, but that one might be tough. (plus that game has the Soul Reaver in it.... So... yeah you know what I'm like when I hear or see that, like a shark that's noticed a little trickle of blood ) 

I always struggle to really define that trilogy, or I guess series, because the Lara from those games is the same one from the isometric ones right? Either way, Legend is my favourite, but I think the best Tomb Raider experience comes from Anniversary, but that isn't doing anything particularly new on account of it being a remake/re-imagining. Underworld just sort of ties up a few loose ends and is a little bit too Uncharted-esque for my liking. Legend is an absolute joy to play though - I think its aged remarkably too, I played it again right at the end of 2019, and it didn't feel like a game that was over a decade old, in fact none of that trilogy did, to be fair.

 

I think Legends of Wrestlemania might have deserved to get the old "buried in the desert" treatment that E.T on the Atari received... It is a woeful mess, I platinumed it too and it isn't any more enjoyable even as a big wrestling fan.

 

8 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said:

As a fan of Wrestling what is your take on the Yuke’s games generally? 
 

Are there any that you would say were objectively ‘good’, or is it more a sliding scale of bad, with only the fandom to keep people buying?

 

I know you didn't ask me this, and I hope MD drops their thoughts too, but I'll leave mine anyway.

 

Yukes are very hit and miss, but are capable of some genuinely good material. The problem is, most of their best work happened before trophies were even conceptualised. They've released or been part of the development process for plenty of excellent wrestling games. You've got things like Smackdown! Shut Your Mouth and Here Comes the Pain and Smackdown vs Raw 2006 for the PS2 and Day of Reckoning 1 and 2 for the Gamecube which were practically the pinnacle of wrestling video games (with a few exceptions), at least in my opinion.

 

Yukes essentially re-did Legends of Wrestlemania in the game engine they use for all the other yearly releases in WWE 2K14. Which if it was actually an attainable platinum I think I'd probably recommend that to anyone. Its campaign mode is essentially "30 Years of Wrestlemania" so, much like Legends of Wrestlemania, you end up recreating the big moments and matches, they too have excellently produced video packages that help get you somewhat invested and interested in the context of the matches you are playing - except, this time they are actually enjoyable to play through.  It's probably one of the best under the "2K" banner as well, as it has just the right balance between arcade and simulation style gameplay. I think its easy to get caught up in the hysteria around them doing yearly releases and being lazy. But it can't be easy to push a game out in a year, you would end up having such a small window of time to implement anything particularly "new or exciting" creatively. I certainly don't think it did the Assassin's Creed series much good when it was doing that. It just lends itself to a stale experience.

 

I wouldn't say its a sliding scale of bad, just patchy and inconsistent. You can have an objectively quite good title one year in 2K19, and then a terrible one the next in 2K20. Its like having a fillet steak one day with some lovely peppercorn sauce (insert sauce of choice) then the next week being fed the sole of someone's shoe, in a gravy made of wee.. Well maybe not that extreme, but I'm sure you get my drift. 

I also don't think people should take into account the trophy lists when deciding if a wrestling game is good or not. Which I know some do. 2K19 is quite a long and grindy platinum, but as a game itself is pretty solid - and whilst the gameplay has devolved (or evolved, depending on your perspective) into being a bit too much of a simulation experience, I don't think any of the games between 2K15 and 2K19 got progressively worse, I'd argue some were better. So Yeah fairly inconsistent is probably where I'd put it on an actual scale. That is a problem, that the series is essentially being kept alive by fandom, there really isn't anything that would hook you in and make you play them in any of the more modern entries even if you were a lapsed wrestling fan. I know plenty of people who got into wrestling via the video games, but I couldn't realistically see that happening very often now.

 

 

Edited June 27, 2021 by rjkclarke

[madbuk]

While there are certainly criticisms of TR Legend that I regularly like to mention (it being the start of the white ledge platforming saga, which isn't remedied until Shadow of the TR over a decade later, and is even copied by many other games afterwards like Uncharted/Horizon, it being too actiony, the puzzles being too simple, etc.), it really is such a high quality package and something the series needed after AoD. A prime example of quality over quantity, and it has my favourite version of Lara by far. I wish the new games were even remotely as engaging as Legend was, storywise. Would love to see a PS4 or PS5 (or both!) stack someday for the LAU trilogy. Legend also has my favourite OST of the series, so many good tracks.

 

Btw, it's a big anniversary for Tomb Raider this year, just thought I'd mention that since Square Enix don't seem to give a fuck themselves </3

[MD_91]

I think @rjkclarke covered my thoughts on it pretty well, the series peaked on the ps2 and the games he mentioned I would all consider as great. 

 

They really struggled with the transition to the ps4 generation with 2k15 probably being the weakest game they've put out besides Legends of Wrestlemania and that's when my interest in the games started to drop, 2k17 and 2k18 were the first games in the series I skipped and I've been playing them every year since they began on the ps1 back in 2000.

 

I decided to give 2k19 a try to see if it felt fresh after missing a couple of years and it's probably one of my favourite in the series, it actually ended up being the last WWE game Yukes were involved in and I think they ended on a high point, they're now working on a game for a different promotion that's likely to be released next year and I'm looking forward to seeing what they can do with the freedom of not being tied to a yearly schedule.

 

 

[JoesusHCrust]

1 hour ago, rjkclarke said:

I loved the bit on Return of the Orba Din, as a fellow puzzle game enthusiast I think I'm going to have to check that one out. I had no idea it was a puzzle game.

Oh man! Are you in for a treat! It's not just a puzzle game, it's the absolute creme de la creme of puzzle perfection! 

On 6/25/2021 at 9:53 AM, DrBloodmoney said:

.............

Fanks for sciencing my suggestion Doc. A great write-up. Comparing to other 'detective' games, ROTOD is so much better than any of it's competitors. I too was thinking of L.A. Noire when I was playing Return.... but the latter is so much better than the former - amazing given the simplicity of the game. How good were the graphics too? How can such basic graphics look so amazing and be so evocative? The game needs a very high level of detail to work and to achieve that in '1-bit' is quite incredible. 

 

My only minor gripe with the game was the setting.

Spoiler

Why did LP opt for the Canary Islands as the location? Given you work for the East India Company, and without giving away any spoilers, given how the story unfolds, it would have been better to have had the story set in a more exotic and less explored location (at least in part, obviously the ship had to end up back in Britain). 

 

Did you manage to complete the whole game without using a guide? If so, you're a puzzle master! The game is hard!

Edited June 27, 2021 by JoesusHCrust
added spoiler tag

[Glorious Fury]

1 hour ago, rjkclarke said:

Yukes are very hit and miss, but are capable of some genuinely good material. The problem is, most of their best work happened before trophies were even conceptualised. They've released or been part of the development process for plenty of excellent wrestling games. You've got things like Smackdown! Shut Your Mouth and Here Comes the Pain and Smackdown vs Raw 2006 for the PS2 and Day of Reckoning 1 and 2 for the Gamecube which were practically the pinnacle of wrestling video games (with a few exceptions), at least in my opinion.

 

This is spot on. Wrestling games during this period were great fun. Shame that 2K have made a game so unappealing. I'm a fairly big wrestling fan, and haven't brought a game in a few years.

 

Hopefully Aki Corp stop making Idol and rhythm games and get back on the wrestling stuff. No Mercy/Wrestlemania 2000 still the gold standard for me!

[DrBloodmoney]

12 hours ago, rjkclarke said:

Yukes are very hit and miss, but are capable of some genuinely good material. The problem is, most of their best work happened before trophies were even conceptualised. They've released or been part of the development process for plenty of excellent wrestling games. You've got things like Smackdown! Shut Your Mouth and Here Comes the Pain and Smackdown vs Raw 2006 for the PS2 and Day of Reckoning 1 and 2 for the Gamecube which were practically the pinnacle of wrestling video games (with a few exceptions), at least in my opinion.

 

I wouldn't say its a sliding scale of bad, just patchy and inconsistent. You can have an objectively quite good title one year in 2K19, and then a terrible one the next in 2K20. Its like having a fillet steak one day with some lovely peppercorn sauce (insert sauce of choice) then the next week being fed the sole of someone's shoe, in a gravy made of wee.. Well maybe not that extreme, but I'm sure you get my drift. 

 

I also don't think people should take into account the trophy lists when deciding if a wrestling game is good or not. Which I know some do. 2K19 is quite a long and grindy platinum, but as a game itself is pretty solid - and whilst the gameplay has devolved (or evolved, depending on your perspective) into being a bit too much of a simulation experience, I don't think any of the games between 2K15 and 2K19 got progressively worse, I'd argue some were better. So Yeah fairly inconsistent is probably where I'd put it on an actual scale. That is a problem, that the series is essentially being kept alive by fandom, there really isn't anything that would hook you in and make you play them in any of the more modern entries even if you were a lapsed wrestling fan. I know plenty of people who got into wrestling via the video games, but I couldn't realistically see that happening very often now.

 

10 hours ago, MD_91 said:

They really struggled with the transition to the ps4 generation with 2k15 probably being the weakest game they've put out besides Legends of Wrestlemania and that's when my interest in the games started to drop, 2k17 and 2k18 were the first games in the series I skipped and I've been playing them every year since they began on the ps1 back in 2000.

 

I decided to give 2k19 a try to see if it felt fresh after missing a couple of years and it's probably one of my favourite in the series, it actually ended up being the last WWE game Yukes were involved in and I think they ended on a high point, they're now working on a game for a different promotion that's likely to be released next year and I'm looking forward to seeing what they can do with the freedom of not being tied to a yearly schedule.

 

10 hours ago, GloriousFury9414 said:

This is spot on. Wrestling games during this period were great fun. Shame that 2K have made a game so unappealing. I'm a fairly big wrestling fan, and haven't brought a game in a few years.

 

Interesting info guys - cheers!

 

I guess it makes sense - I've always heard that the Yukes games were pretty bad, and suffered for the horrendous budget deficiencies and relentless release schedule, but it does make sense that at some point they were good - otherwise it simply wouldn't make sense that they kept a hold of the licence for so long - I never played the PS2 era ones, but I will say - that was probably the era when I would hear the most positive stuff about WWE games. I think in my mind I had rationalised that as more to do with me being more surrounded by wrestling fans in that era (that was Secondary School / Early University days for me,) but I guess the two go hand in hand - the games were better, and so more people were talking!

 

I must say - the time has probably passed for me on trying any of the new WWE games now - finding time to fit in a game I'm not so sure about in the sea of games I have now is probably not gonna happen realistically - though the one game that I still hear consistent positive stuff about is the FirePro Wrestling games - don't know what you guys think of those? One of my more Wrestling-fan buddies seems to have spent hundreds of hours on the new one, and is very positive on it!

 

Edited June 28, 2021 by DrBloodmoney