Most Recent Platinum

[RoxasOnFire]

Plat number 323 Far Cry 6

5/10 difficulty 

Good story, but the collectables sucked ass

 

I personally liked FC5's story more, (bc I lived in Montana lol) but overall it was worth the play. Side missions offered some decent variety.

 

[Megatritionsts]

YAKUZA KIWAMI.

[Ric]

Rabi-Ribi

 

 

 

Sexy anime bunny girl bullet hell metroidvania (now how's that for a game description ?)

 

Great game, even if you don't like the fan servicey sexy anime stuff, it's still a very good MetroidVania with a Bullet Hell twist.

[IvoryRose88]

#648 Crash Bandicoot Warped

#649 Record of Lodoss War: deelit in Wonder Labyrinth (great Symphony of the night style game)

#650 Deaths Door (very beautiful Zelda/Hob like game)

 

 

[xLuffynho]

 #005 - Hades 
All 50 Trophies 
26th December 2021 • Platinum in 3 days, 16 hours

 

 #004 - Deathloop 
All 55 Trophies 
21st December 2021 • Platinum in 2 days, 2 hours

 

 #003 - Demon's Souls 
All 37 Trophies 
19th December 2021 • Platinum in 1 day, 12 hours

 

 #002 - Among Us 
All 25 Trophies 
18th December 2021 • Platinum in 4 hours, 34 seconds

 

 #001 - Returnal 
All 31 Trophies
17th December 2021 • Platinum in 6 days, 1 hour

 

Edited December 27, 2021 by LordNinjo

[Thirsty_Otter]

 

My most recent 100% was Bioshock remastered. I haven't played much lately, but I really enjoyed this game when I went through it. The second Bioshock is one of my all time favorite games, even though I know most people prefer the first.

Edited December 28, 2021 by RoadRunner_005

[buenatortuga]

Platinum #106

Tomb Raider: Anniversary

PSN: Buenatortuga

Site: https://psnprofiles.com/buenatortuga

[matrelli01]

# 3  + 100% Dirt 5

n. 21 100 % Fastest achievers (n. 1 in Italy)

 

I'm happy I spent my Christmas holidays playing this game... ?

For some reasons I didn't have high expectations on this game: i was wrong!!!

The game is so fun. I spent most of the time drifting. it's not really a rally game, it's rather an off road arcade racing game but there is no space for simulation.

About the DLCs: they are probably the best and the most difficult of the game...  Some of the events are very fun, some can be challenging. Anyway nothing impossible.

 

Next projects: MotoGP 20 + 100% Project Cars 3

 

Happy hunting to everyone 

 

 

Edited December 28, 2021 by matrelli01

[maetamong]

Resident Evil 2 

[Viper]

 #259

Far Cry 6

Conquistador

 

Not a lot to say about this one, it's Far Cry...and just more of it. I mean I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did though as I wasn't jumping with joy when this was announced BECAUSE I thought it looked like more of the same. I didn't care much for FC5 or New Dawn, so I was a bit down on the series when this was being marketed...but it was much much better, I'd rate it right behind 3 and 4. The story was a bit cliche (band of tired vigilantes rebel against tyrant leader to take their country back), but it was told well, (Female) Dani is a likable character, most of your Libertad crew felt believable, and the map of Yara was a fun playground to roam around in, and as always Giancarlo Esposito was a great villain. 

 

I also like that they addressed a big complaint everyone had with 5 in that, in that game you had this silent customizable protagonist you never saw...Dani was voiced well and you had moments in cut scenes and at camps where she's in third person...so you actually get to SEE her, you have a reason to care about who you're playing as, and I think that's very important. 

 

I did have quite a few performance issues with this game though...it's by far the worst performing PS5 game I've played so far. There's screen tearing...which is something I thought we were long past these days, I had insane screen flickering and trying adjust my 4K settings on the console didn't help, I had a strange audio bug where all the sound effects would get super staticky and robotic sounding. I eventually switched out my HDMI cable with the one that came with my PS5 and cleared my system cache, and it seemed to fix the audio bug, the screen flickering wasn't as bad but still present as the screen tearing is definitely due to poor optimization in the game. And while this isn't a huge deal....the graphics, for a game that usually does well in this department, felt very last gen. Like, they weren't bad at all...but you look at this game and think "this looks very PS4"...like they didn't put in any extra work to make the PS5 version look like a PS5 game. 

 

Overall, fun game, worth playing if you like the series. 

[ASMODAIOS344]

 

You Can't Scare Me! Earn every Trophy.

 

That was a fun point and click adventure game , possible lost a ton of references as my only experience with the Goosebumps series is the movie adaptation (haven't watched the sequel yet). After checking some books have translated in my language, maybe i will bought them some day.

[Lightsp33d1987]

 

[MarcusPunisher]

Cyberpunk 2077

11.69% - Rare

Here is a game that I never thought I would attempt, but I got for a steal price during Black Friday and I watched new Digital Foundry videos where they talked about improvements where the game is not unplayable so I decided to boot it up.
I can certainly confirm that major updates had been made and the game runs significantly better than on launch or at least as best as a game console can. I played over 100 hours where I only experienced 3 crashes. There are still very on the nose texture pop ins, especially when you are driving around during a day and the NPC's are not loaded properly. It is a big improvement and if you can forgive some of these mistakes, you are good to go. I played Witcher 3 on launch and Rage 2, which I think were way worse so I am very forgivable when it comes to this stuff.

As for the game itself, I never got on the insane hype train that this game will become the second coming of gaming and I treat it for what it is, which doesn't mean that I completely ignore what has been promised. I regard Witcher 3 as a great game, but even that one I don't think it's perfect (don't know if this is a hot take), especially with the combat and boss battles. The strength's were mainly in the story, characters, world building, and the way the story can alter through your choices and little details. After playing Cyberpunk 2077, I can without a doubt say that those strengths are still present. The story and how it takes advantage of its genre is excellently presented. The world is fully realized with the post-capitalistic future where certain things become more tolerable and humanity is getting to a position where it is getting pretty f*cuked. The side quests are equally on the same quality like Witcher 3 and some of them manage to be more interesting than the main plot. One of my personal favorite was with a companion detective River Ward and the investigation of child trafficking and consumption of their energy as a result of a ban issued on farmers for owning any industrial animals and therefore some of them resulting to go into more drastic measures. Plus, many others that I could name like the one with the prisoner being crucified or the quest Dream On. The game tackles pretty heavy subjects as expected in a Cyberpunk world, but I never felt like being beaten over the head with its message or having any beliefs being pushed on me. Everything felt organic and the message was delivered in a subtle ways that I wish more games would do these days, cause I can name several game developers who are the opposite of subtle cough David Cage cough. The game not only fleshes out the world and how it operates, but also the characters in it. My personal favorite include Judy and Kerry, who are a big part of the games central themes and the operations of Night City. The solid writing is also helped by the talented voice acting, which I think everyone did an outstanding job in their roles. I was pretty disappointed that someone like Panam voice actress didn't get nominated this year at Game Awards. I will say that Keanu Reeves unfortunately comes off a little stoic at points, but I am willing to forgive him for not being particularly a professional voice actor. His character of Johnny however is perhaps the best written in the game and that also comes down to player's choice. I've read that choices in this game don't really matter and that is true in some cases, but in many the player has to pay attention to the right dialogue and how certain quests are being completed, cause if something goes wrong, the characters behavior like Johnny and the story ending can be different. These choices can then affect certain outcomes and can screw up the finale like in Witcher 3 if you are not careful with Ciri's choices. Then it comes to the many endings that all represent a certain message that the main character V (in my case female, cause I am bias towards the voice actress lol) answers to the overarching theme of the game, which is immortality. Everyone, including the main character is bound to leave something behind in Night City so they can be remembered and V being on a brink of death has to find a way to cure herself will then make a choice of how she decides to tackle that message. One ending even gave me some SOMA flashbacks and that games narrative freaked me out, cause it asked questions that can legitimately be frightening. I can go on, but I have to say that I salute the writers, the performers, the quest designers, and so on for how well this was done. If a game can still be effective after a scene where our main character has to go undercover to a prostitute place to rent a pleasure bot to find some questions to then suddenly shift to a philosophical moment of questioning life and death, giving our protagonist some depth, then it is doing something right. In a perfect world, this would get nominated for a best narrative and most likely win.
It sadly is not what the game is gonna be remembered the most for, cause it's everything about the bugs and glitches. Like I said, it runs better, but if you cannot tolerate late loading textures or frequent pop ins, you will not have a good time and your immersion can break, I understand that not everyone can tolerate that like me. While I personally enjoyed the combat more here than in Witcher 3, it feels very standard and sometimes underwhelming. The gameplay in general can be summarized as basic. Basic combat, skill tree, skills, inventory, the map, the progression, and so on, which is doesn't mean it is bad, but it doesn't break any grounds like it promised. The mantis blades are a lot of fun to use however. For a Cyberpunk game, there is not much in terms of customization aside from clothing and augmentations. No change in hair style, no tattoos, no accessories, ect. It would be a big improvement to add more customization and many other vehicles other than cars and bikes. This is 2077 after all. The one big complain I would personally have is the repetitive gigs and constant call in that get pretty annoying. That could have been fixed and fleshed out more, but I guess that got lost in the rushed development. 

As for the road to platinum, it is pretty straight forward with no difficulty. The only annoying part would be cleaning up all the gigs in every district, which I mentioned before are very repetitive and collecting all the purchasable vehicles that require to farm a lot of money. Thankfully, I was able to get enough from the side jobs and towards the end by crafting weapons. The rest of it either ties to misc. or individual story quests. It does take a long time, I spend over 100 hours on this, but that's about it really.
Overall, this a very pleasant surprise for me, probably the most pleasant of this year, fitting to be right at the end. Probably my last platinum of this year, which is honestly perfect. Cyberpunk 2077 was released last year of this month in a terrible technical state and I am glad I got to experienced it in a much better one. I can easily say that this is NOT a bad game. The story, the writing, the world building, the characters is what elevates this product. If it wasn't for the technical aspect and more redefined gameplay, this could have been really something great. I take it for what it is and I will probably think about the story more even way after being done with the game. I would highly encourage people to give this a second chance, but if you are at the state that CD Project doesn't deserve your time or money, it is perfectly understandable. I look at it as more of a fault of the higher ups and business people, cause the actual developers who actually had some work on this tried to make something great. Unlike titles from other corporate game companies like Ubisoft, EA, and Activison, where their games feel more like check boxes, I can see some actual passion being put into this, it's just a shame it came out the way it did and the under delivered promises that the company made hurt it even more. Still, I enjoyed my time with this game and if some form of a bigger DLC was to be released, I would consider it.

I end this with a pic of my OC and a reference to the end of Blade Runner.

[Jamescush147]

  Platinum 291 

Bugsnax Master
Obtain all of the trophies.

39.26% Uncommon

 

Platinum
1 day, 17 hours, 1 minute

 

Kinda bug and kinda snack
Try to catch 'em in your trap
Feed somebody and you'll see
We are whatever we eat
Find 'em hiding in the sand
Tearing up a ketchup patch
Come to Snaktooth Island and
Discover its Bugsnax

[Omelette Paradise]

 #524 - Theme Park Simulator

 

 

This wasn't what I was expecting at all. I thought it was going to be a theme park simulation game where you could build a park from scratch but what I was presented with was a ready made park consisting of 11 rides where your interaction is limited to opening the gates to allow people on and starting the ride itself then letting the passengers off when you get bored. There are some very basic customisation options such as adjusting the speed of the ride etc but that's it. The options and the menu system themselves are also extremely clunky which just about sums it up.

 

Avoid.

 

 525 - Lydia

 

 

This one also took me by surprise but in a positive way. It's a point & click that tells the story of a young girl surrounded by substance abuse. It's got a great atmospheric tone and the hand drawn animation looks good but it's a hard game to recommend because of the subject matter and it wasn't what I'd call fun. The all too brief story is the main draw here rather than the gameplay but it's a compelling tale that provoked a great deal of thought for me when I reached the end.

[AK-1138]

Platinum #684:

 

 

Difficulty: 2.5/10

Playtime: 12-13 hours

 

Welp, thus far Vita LEGO games have conditioned me to Expecto Disappointum, so I weren't inordinately enthused when I dragged this one out of the ol' backlog cupboard under the stairs just to have something quick and portable to play in the Christmas off-hours, y'know? Well... simply put, this is what a Vita LEGO game should be. No cute experimenting with the main formula, just bite-sized recreations of their meatier "big platform" counterparts that prove savoury and filling (wow, all of a sudden I'm kinda hungry? Meataphors is 'ard work, they is...) in their own right.

Meaningful concessions of content in the name of hardware limitations are rarely ever made... hell, the devs even show some rare and welcomed abstention from their periodical penchant for padding, as DHP1 features only two levels where they could have easily, I don't know, turned the tent dancing sequence thing or Harry romancing a barista into a level or something. I can respect that. Puzzles and minigames rarely overstay their welcome, and remain, for the most part, intuitive and unintrusive (try saying that eleventeen times fast). I'll forego my usual gripes with Traveller's Tales' incessant stagnation because for once, going strictly formula was the better choice.

Now, any good LEGO game does tend to feature a signature mechanic to hang its Sorting Hat on, and in this case, the series-unique Dueling system is a good bit of fun. Not only does it provide some cathartic story battle moments, it proves equally as big a part of 100% completion as the usual gathering of minikits, bricks, and tokens; the usual brick-a-brac. Think Dead Man's Volley with sparkling light beams and you're getting somewhere. It's easy to pick up, satisfying to master, and always keeps you on your toes. Going through the wizard gamut of everyone from Out-of-Focus Schoolmate Who Was Kinda Relevant Early On I Guess to ol' Moldywart himself as the divine Ms. Luna Lovegood--the one true chosen one; wielding the Elder Wand, no less!--was a sheer delight, even if there are some fifteen battles too many to not make it feel just a little bit like a chore in the end.

And that's, unfortunately, not the only caveat (hey, that word seems oddly Harry Potter-y, somehow) to be found. The saving procedure takes five to seven seconds to complete, and it appears every time you achieve something worth saving. It really drags the pacing down; I spent upwards of a combined hour of "playtime" just waiting for these to finish, and it becomes especially bad in the Dueling Club. A blank screen of the same length would have been infinitely better. The game also occasionally fails to provide you with the proper characters you need to interact with objects in Freeplay, and checkpoints are few and far between, so that's fun. And, it's gotta be said... Stud Magnet is nerfed to shit, providing almost no discernible improvement over the normal level of stud suction. It sucks when you can't suck studs properly, guys. Get your shit together.

Hogwarts and all, though... this is the closest a Vita LEGO game has come to meriting attention not just as pint-sized facsimile of an almost inevitably inherently better game, but as an experience in its own right. Now, it ain't nothing Outstanding, but it certainly Exceeds Expectations in an idiom that all too frequently vacillates between Acceptable and Dreadful, and every now and then, that is the stuff of indomitable victory. Mischief managed.

Final Score: 7.5/10

[rjkclarke]

Platinum #341

Stranded Deep (PS4)

 

 

Stay Alive!
Collected all trophies

 

Stranded Deep is another game that I feel like I have to slap another big fat disgusting context warning on top of. A context warning so fat and obvious even Mr Magoo could probably have seen it coming a mile off. Stranded Deep is very much not the kind of game I would usually play. I have almost zero experience with the genre. That being said however, after playing Stranded Deep I do think I might like to dip my toes in with the occasional foray back into this type of game. I’m very aware that better alternatives exist to Stranded Deep, so I feel like I ought to seek some of those out first at some point.

 

If you go purely based on how this site describes the game – then you’d hear the words: Simulator,Adventure,Indie, Horror and Survival. Sometimes those descriptions are absolutely not a realistic description of the game you are about to play. Is that true in Stranded Deep’s case? I actually think it is yeah.

 

Across your time with Stranded Deep you will almost certainly experience a lot of what you’d expect from words like Horror, Simulation or Survival. To its credit, I’d say this is probably where Stranded Deep thrives too.

 

One thing you’ll almost certainly thank Stranded Deep for – is the fact that you don’t have to read about me waxing lyrical about how engaging the story elements can be.  Well, that and how compelling I thought certain characters are in this game for once – because, well, for all intents and purposes this game has no story and no characters.  Just you, some procedurally generated tropical islands and Coconuts, oh so many Coconuts.

 

I can literally sum the story up like this “You’re on a plane, the plane crashes, you swim to an island, and you must survive.” You know what though? Sometimes that isn’t a bad thing; I certainly don’t think it hampered Stranded Deep from being enjoyable.

 

At a glance, you’d probably think Stranded Deep was a pretty basic, and also quite ugly game – but if you dig a little deeper and scratch beneath the surface and look at some videos of this game through its evolution, an evolution that hasn’t stopped yet I might add, from where it started, to where it’s at now are wildly different entities.

 

I think for the most part, visually at least, the game looks rather good – dangerous plants are essentially colour coded for avoidance, it usually amounts to if it’s purple run away screaming – well, that or just don’t be a nimrod and tread on it, like I might possibly have done once or twice. You can’t win them all though right?

It isn’t all perfect – because there is an absolute abundance of re-used assets – every island does somewhat look the same, apart from the odd few that have survivor remnants on them. So in this regard exploration becomes a little more tedious, as you might find you’d visit the same island multiple times, because it has no discernable landmarks. This was a particular trap that I sprung on myself multiple times, more on that shortly though.

 

I had one particularly hilarious incident where this happened just before I got the platinum. As I was using the Gyrocopter to look for the Survivor remnants, I took off and then came to an island that seemed completely unfamiliar to me, AT FIRST; there were half built structures everywhere. I was genuinely excited and thought “I’ve not seen anything like this yet.”  Unfortunately, when I set down in the Gyrocopter and went to inspect everything it turns out it was the island I was using as my home base, so I literally flew around in a circle and came back to my own Island thinking it was a completely new one, I laughed out loud, then audibly said “well done dumbarse.” Before setting off on the Gyrocopter again, and then crashed it into the sea (for good measure I guess?) because I was trying to make sure I didn’t circle back to my own island again. Apparently my character thought a watery grave was better than the embarrassment of doing that for a second time.   

 

Full disclosure here – this is a little of me creeping into this review. I really hate using the word adequate as an adjective, because to me it just sounds like a really posh disappointed parent looking at their child’s naff Macaroni Owl drawing, then looking down their beaky nose at it and saying “that’s adequate.” Bear with me, as tenuous as it might sound, I’m going somewhere with this, adequate is the only adjective I can use to describe Stranded Deep’s soundtrack, it is adequate, it does its job, you can somewhat tell what it is, but you don’t really like it and you’d probably much rather it wasn’t there. It’s at the very least relaxing, but I ended up turning it off in favour of listening to Podcasts or Music.

 

An area where Stranded Deep seems to particularly shine is actually in the ability it seems to have to be able to give you a fairly decent anecdote no matter who plays it, which ties directly into the gameplay. An area that is really the only thing I can talk about in depth with this game.

The fact that the twenty-five islands that spawn in when you start the game are random ends up making practically every playthrough very unique to each individual player, whether or not you particularly like this is probably down to preference. For what it’s worth, I like that element, a whole lot as it adds a real layer of unpredictability to the experience.

 

Even though I have an admittedly limited knowledge of what to expect from a game from this genre – when you go into it, you expect a few things: crafting, survival mechanics (food and water,) and the ability for eventual self sustainability. Stranded Deep does possess these qualities, sure – but deep is something that goes only as far as the title; there really isn’t a whole lot of depth to any of the elements I mentioned above.

 

There are a lot of options afforded to you, but a personal pet peeve of mine is when the game gives you the illusion of options – how many of us are likely to use the lesser option when you know there’s something readily available instead that can do something better? Not many of us I’m sure.

Take cooking for example – Stranded Deep has plenty of options for various cookers and ways and means to cook food, but far and away the best thing you can use to cook is the meat smoker. The game has a mechanic where if you leave food for too long then it spoils, something which does make sense, just eat fruit or vegetables when you get them to get around that, but with meat, even if you cook it, it can become spoiled, so the best approach is to smoke it which essentially preserves it forever.

You can take smoked meat with you on long journeys, and you can store five pieces of meat on the smoker itself if you are lacking room. I vividly remember thinking, if I didn’t have to get a trophy for building one of everything I really wouldn’t bother with any of the other means of cooking.

 

That self sustainability does come a little too quickly and easily in Stranded Deep I’d argue, if you’re careful about it you can usually build all of the necessary things you’d need to survive for a while just by venturing to a few islands. Materials are so easy to come by, and the only things you really have to worry about is the durability of some of your tools. It’s an area that I feel Stranded Deep really could have made an effort to go hard with, and make it feel like an absolute struggle. They aren’t strictly the same genre of course, but I remember the first few hours of playing This War of Mine thinking how important and necessary each specific piece of crafting material was to just stay alive that little bit longer, even if it was for just one day – but with Stranded Deep it was a case of “oh, there’s another crab, a giant one too, that’s dinner sorted.”  

 

You might remember a little bit earlier –  that I mentioned the fact that this game seems to have a certain ability to pull good anecdotes from a playthrough, this one I’m about to share is by no means the best or the funniest, but it at least plays into the Horror aspect of this game. I’ll share one of mine.

 

For a little context for those who are unaware, to complete Stranded Deep you are required to fight three giant sea monster bosses to get the necessary plane parts to escape from the islands. As the maps are randomly generated in twenty-five, five by five columns, where the particular bosses are on your map will be completely different depending on your game.

 

So imagine me, on my playthrough where you can’t use a compass because it voids a trophy. The last boss I had to defeat happened to be practically halfway across the map, those bosses take some killing too – I had to kill the Eel, which takes about forty or so crude spears if you only use those, so I basically had to go with just a sleeping bag, crates filled with spears, and as many spears as I could take in my inventory.

Just travelling to the Eel took a full day of sailing on my raft, and then I had to sleep so I had some daylight to fight the Eel. Unfortunately sleeping also drops your hunger and thirst meter down, so going into the fight I was dangerously hungry, and low on water, already a bad start, right?

Well immediately after the first interaction with the Eel (it decided I was dinner,) I got the bleeding status effect (your health decreases until you make a bandage,) did I bring bandages? No, because I needed as much room for spears as I could possibly get. I proceeded to get hit several more times during the fight against the Eel, to the point where my health was dangerously low. I did eventually beat the Eel, but after doing so I had no supplies, rapidly dwindling health, and it was becoming night time.

 

Fade to black....... Oh no, the nightmare isn’t over yet.

 

My journey back halfway across the map was exactly that, a journey, or an adventure filled with horror. At first I thought, “Yeah I can probably get back like this,” then reality kicked in and I realised I’d die on the way back. My first priorities then, find an island, and find the resources to craft a bandage..To craft one you need a piece of cloth and one lashing (made from four fibrous leaves). I decided to stop at the first Island I came across going in a diagonal line, which is where I believed is where I’d come from. As resources on islands are randomised you aren’t guaranteed a piece of Cloth and scavenging enough to make a Loom to make some cloth wasn’t viable either.

What I hadn’t realised is my raft had gotten itself turned around during the Eel fight, so I wasn’t going in the right direction at all, still – the first island I came across had the cloth that I needed thankfully, so a bandage was made. However, I was still starving to death and dying of thirst, I couldn’t use any of the islands as a second base, so I thought I’d just get what I could as I went along trying to find my way home.

 

A good idea in theory, but that was the beginning of the nightmare. I genuinely was worried that I was going to die before I got back to my home base, I had the last plane part I needed to finish the game, and I couldn’t save, because I was in such a precarious situation that I could have completely screwed my playthrough by saving over my previous save. I couldn’t sleep because I’d die of hunger and thirst, so I was essentially navigating in the dark, without a compass, so I couldn’t even make out landmarks like the Aircraft carrier, which was not too far from my home base.

 

So there I was desperately sailing around from Island to Island hoping to find food, and water and my way home. It was a desperate time, and I was taking anything I could find, as sustenance, scavenging every nook and cranny as quick as possible to find fruit (it replenishes food and water). Eventually I looked at the time in the game, and thought it’ll be light soon, so I’ll sail in the direction that I think is where my home is, and hopefully by the time I get closer I might see something I recognise. I can’t tell you how overjoyed I was when I saw that aircraft carrier in the far off distance as dawn was beginning to break and knew that I was almost home. There aren’t many times in video games where I’ve been so glad of the safety of a save point.

 

For as much as it is easy to pick holes in Stranded Deep being a fairly basic survival experience, I’m grateful of the fact that the game gave me an experience like that, and one I don’t think I’ll forget in a hurry. During that time, I really did feel, lost, alone, and stranded and sea, that sense of dread was palpable.

 

I did plan on writing quite a lot about Stranded Deeps trophies, trophies which are honestly fairly obnoxious. I think I’ll try and keep this as brief as possible though, because whilst I had a nightmare with a few of them, they aren’t really that bad apart from having poor descriptions.

 

Some of them are so vague like Two of Each, as nobody seems to know for sure which animals count, so you end up filling your raft up with a zoo practically, and sailing into a storm in the hope that your menagerie is indeed the ark  the trophy overlords are looking for. I also wasn’t quite willing to build a huge raft for all the animals. Mine essentially worked like a floating see-saw. I had a raft base either end, as a makeshift hold for the animals, but to make sure the raft would float, I had to strategically place animals either side so it wouldn’t sink. What I was left with was a bizarre image of some cobbled together bits of wood, with two hogs either end, two wild boars strategically placed, two snakes around the sail and two more carefully placed crabs (which are apparently made of lead, judging by how much they seem to weigh here,) either side to keep us afloat (and a partridge in a pear tree, well - I might as well have done).

 

That same feeling of dread, that I mentioned that I got on the way back from the Eel, I also got when Call me Ahab (Trophy for crafting all boss kill trophies,) didn’t unlock when it should have done. The game thought they had been crafted, as it unlocked the trophy for crafting every item in the game, but that item specific trophy didn’t unlock. So that’s several hours of progress I had to retread. Apparently they have to be crafted in the same game session – so don’t make the same mistake as me, and just hold off on crafting them until you can have all three on you at once.

 

Other than that, the trophies are all fairly straightforward to understand, yet not too easy to actually pull off. Crafting every item can be a fairly arduous process, and the trophies for surviving ten days in various conditions is a bit luck dependent if you plan on doing it on the first Island like I did, if you go somewhere that doesn’t have enough Coconuts to live on for ten days you’re pretty much screwed in that regard, so you might want to restart. Oh and if you like natty little references to films, then one of the trophies is a reference to the film Castaway.

As much as I’d like to, I can’t give all that much advice for this game, because it’s randomised, so every playthrough is pretty much uniquely different (an element I very much like,) but if I was going to give any, I’d say to use any of the available tricks that you feel comfortable with, like creating a dedicated farming island, to only use to mine resources from.

 

Would I recommend Stranded Deep? It all depends really, if you’re into games like this anyway, then you’ve probably played something better already, or even this game itself. If you are a relative neophyte to this genre like I am, then I genuinely think there might be some fun to be had there for you. Plenty of us will probably have it too, as it was a free offering from Playstation Plus not too long ago. Just be mindful of the bugs that can occur, and you will probably have a slightly smoother time of things than I did.  I can’t say I felt motivated to play this game very often, but once I got in the swing of it I did quite enjoy it, and it did make me want to experiment with a few more games in this genre in the future, so that absolutely can’t be a bad thing.   

Edited December 29, 2021 by rjkclarke

[Moridin83]

 #185 Ender Lilies

 

I loved this game. That's not something I say very frequently. I play a lot of games, and I like most of them. But I love this game. It's a metroidvania in the Hollow Knight style, but I prefer this one immensely. It's a gorgeous game, the music is really good, haunting at times, and downright oppressive in certain areas, without being over the top. It's not an easy game, but the lack of death penalty means it's not too punishing. Like most metroidvanias, it gets easier as you explore, but the difficulty is never trivialized. The story is, quite frankly, depressing. That's not a bad thing though. It fits the world the game is in, and your character's visual changes also reflect this as you progress. Highly recommended, maybe my favorite plat of 2021, and without a doubt, top 3. Perfect plat to end the year.

[RedRodriguez87]

 

#359: MIB Veteran

 

Been sitting on this one for a good long while, but I'm glad i went through with it, because I ended up having quite a bit of fun with it.

 

Sure, you can tell it was made on a budget, the story isn't too spectacular (normal joe sees something he shouldn't, and through a string of events is recruited into the MIB), and there are some annoying things about it, mostly centering around the extremely clunky weapon/ability switching and aiming AND steering while in the car is mapped to the right stick for some dumb reason.

 

But aside from all that, there is a really enjoyable arcadey game in here. The weapons and abilities are very unique and varied, and its neat to combine them to rack up points, The games few stealth missions are pretty puzzlelike and fun, it just really was an entertaining ride.

[DefinitiveTJ]

Platinum 103: The Walking Dead: The Final Season

 

 

Finally took the time to play through the whole of Telltale's The Walking Dead on this account. I've played all of them before except the final season and I'm glad to say that I actually enjoyed it. I wasn't a fan of the more ''gamey'' direction they went with. You now have a bit more involved walker combat, which resulted in just clunky and not fun gameplay sections. Also the fishing and hunting mini-games were just awful.

 

But looking at the thing we actually play Telltale games for, the story, I must say that they did deliver. It never reaches the height of the first season but it also doesn't have to. Playing with an older Clem and guiding AJ to make the right choices was a great way to handle the conclusion and it draws some interesting parallels with between Lee and Clem and now Clem and AJ.

 

With The Walking Dead concluded I'm now even more exited about The Wolf Among Us season 2, which hopefully still comes out.

 

Platinum 104: Sound Shapes

I played Sound Shapes when it launched many years ago and never beat death mode. I was a fan of the game and liked the campaign but 2d platformers aren't really my thing so I gave up. Now for some reason I decided to punish myself and start the game fresh to hopefully take revenge on my old self and actually finish it. And I must say that it wasn't all that difficult or frustrating, mostly because of the correct expectations.

 

Every death mode stage comes down to the same principles. First, learn every location the notes spawn. Then, learn where to be careful with the obstacles and where to be reckless. After a while you suddenly see the pattern and then the final stage commences: Get Lucky. It's annoying but as many people will say that it only comes down to a lucky string of achievable note spawns. Sometimes it takes an hour to finish a stage, other times 5 minutes. In the end it was more about determination than skill.

 

It is weird that I actually did better with the sound of so I did miss half of what makes the game great I guess that's what Beat School was for.

[Feral]

#60 - Red Dead Redemption II. Game is an absolute masterpiece and the plat is slightly painful but fuck it’s nice to have it ?

Edited December 29, 2021 by Feral

[sealightbreeze]

 

 

 

[Undead Wolf]

 #393 - It Takes Two

Power Couple

You are unstoppable, nothing stands in your way!

 

This is the next game from Hazelight Studios, the same devs responsible for A Way Out, which I thought was excellent, so I had high hopes going into this one. It didn't disappoint! Like man, I was really impressed with this game. It's just non-stop fun from start to finish, and it's considerably more lengthy than A Way Out too. The gameplay mostly consists of solving puzzles, with each new area giving you different tools to play with. I think this game struck a really good balance with the puzzle difficulty. They took some figuring out, but it was never to the point where it got frustrating and I felt the need to look up the solution. That's difficult to pull off, so I commend them for that. The writing in this game was excellent. It's genuinely funny, especially in any scene that involved Dr. Hakim. ? It honestly baffles me that anyone took issue with the story in this game because it was actually pretty wholesome and it leaves you feeling good at the end. It was mostly game journos going off about that though, so you know not to take them seriously. They're a miserable bunch. ?

 

I really can't recommend this game enough if you have a close friend or family member to play it with. One of the best games to come out in recent years imo. I know @Redgrave enjoyed it as much as I did. The shenanigans we got up to in this game is something I'll look back on fondly years from now. ?

 

 #394 - Mafia

The Original Gangster

Obtained all Mafia: Definitive Edition Trophies

 

I never played the original game, so I can't speak to how this remake may have screwed things up (like most remakes seem to do), but on it's own, I thought this game was great... for the most part anyway. I had a hard time getting into the game at first, but once I got past Chapter 5, it clicked with me and I started enjoying it way more. A lot of that was probably due to me starting the game on Classic difficulty. They frontload the worst missions like having to drive across the city on a really strict timer, and then of course there's the infamous race. While I think its difficulty is overblown, it's still annoying. I probably spent about an hour on it in total. The cars in this game control like shit. ? Thankfully the rest of the game is focused mostly on combat, and that's not much of an issue on Classic.

 

The real highlight of this game is the story. Whenever a cutscene played, I found myself really engrossed in it. I've known how this game ended for many years, but it was cool to finally get the full context behind it. I was really impressed with the character performances. They did a great job of making it all feel believable. It's a beautiful-looking game too. I'd really like to play Mafia 2 again, and I own it as part of the Mafia Trilogy on PS4, but I've heard it suffers from a lot of technical issues. Might just put up with it because I remember that game being great as well.

[Squirlruler]

 #106 Darkest Dungeon - The Iron Crown

Ruin has come to our family. This was a game I was hesitant to play. Not because I didn't think I would like it, but rather for its known difficulty. I am glad I did though. The game is SO GOOD. Spoilers follow. You start the game with a missive to return to the family estate. You are one of the last remaining heirs and need to take care of things. You control your heroes to do the exploring for you. There is a great breath of heroes to choose from. You have a set class, that has a number of abilities that you can pick and choose to use. Almost all heroes have a good use and I rarely found myself not liking the hero I picked, which is good since one of the trophies you need to level every single character type. So you send your heroes out on missions to take care of different things, exploring, killing, etc. As you do, you find journals of your Ancestor that tells more of what has happened. The ending is pretty great so I will leave that for you to find on your own. Leveling up your heroes allows them to get gear upgrades which makes them stronger. This is balanced by heroes only going on level appropriate missions (level 5 hero won't go on a level 1 mission). The harder missions have beefed up versions of monsters and new ones as well. The real challenge is the final dungeon, aptly named Darkest Dungeon (which made searching for info in Google interesting lol). These missions were very unique; while having similar elements, the mission style were not found in the previous areas. The Crimson Court DLC was really fun. You needed to find an invite to be able to start the mission, but you were free to leave and come back to where you were during it, without penalty, which is unique to this DLC. The maps are huge and if I didn't look them up, they would have taken forever to go through. I luckily didn't have to find more invitations though, because of exploits with the game. The other DLC was The Color of Madness. Oh, have you noticed it? This DLC is likely inspired by HP Lovecraft, who wrote a short story that closely resembles it. This DLC has an end endless wave mode that, while not too difficult, was definitely time consuming for getting 300 kills in it. That alone probably took 5 hours of playing. There are a number of exploits that you can do with this game to make it easily. The first is resetting battles. Since this is a turn based game with lots of RNG elements, and saving only occurs every so often, you can restart any fight and do different abilities to create different outcomes. It seems the seed is set once you start a fight, so doing the same moves will result in the same outcomes. EXCEPT for one mechanic. There is a stat called Stress, and when it gets too high, your hero will become afflicted/virtuous. Affliction is detrimental, while becoming virtuous offers benefits to that hero, ranging from healing themselves, buff party members, lowering stress. So becoming virtuous is highly valuable. What you can do, is when the hero's stress is hits that level and they become afflicted, you can quickly save and exit the game. This will NOT register the affliction. When you go back into the game, the thing to stress your hero will occur again and you have another chance at becoming virtuous. Rinse and repeat until you are virtuous! This little exploit helps SO MUCH, that you really don't have to manage stress anymore. While this does make the game easier it still isn't a cake walk. You need to make sure your heroes are up to the task at hand, synergize well together, and keep up with things like healing and debuffs. There are many other mechanics I didn't mention, such as rebuilding the estate and managing traits and illnesses, but those are pretty easy to get into once you are in the game. I did end up restarting my first playthrough, because there is A LOT of things going on, and restarting was just a better option than trying to salvage a game where many things were issues. Overall, I really enjoyed this game and would recommend it.

Enjoyment: 9/10

Difficulty : 7/10 (10/10 without exploits)

Estimated Time to Complete: ~50 hours

[PooPooBlast]

#167 and 100% Ghost of Tsushima

 

Ghost of Tsushima was an interesting game for me. Great story, great swordplay, INCREDIBLE VISUALS (more on that below) and 10/10 makes you feel like a samurai (albeit an unconventional one). Where I had qualms with the game were the uninspiring side quests (can't even remember a good one..) and collectibles as means of extending game time. 

 

- The classic staple that every game has - liberating outposts was fun.

- However, finding a bajillion foxies, bamboo strikes, 20 scrolls, 20 artifacts, hot springs, haikus, inari shrines, lighthouses and shinto shrines were not. 

 

What the game got right and made me persist till the end were the story, gameplay and visuals. People might say graphics aren't everything in a game but I'd argue that without visuals and the way environments were stylized to give that whole "samurai feel", Ghost of Tsushima wouldn't have been that well-received. I thought that the side activities were just... boring to some extent. 

 

Nevertheless, I must talk about how they removed ALL HUD when roaming the environment outside of combat which I thought was a brilliant decision and made you focus on the surroundings rather than a tiny map at the corner of a screen. I captured a LOTTTT of pics so here! Feast your eyes . 

https://imgur.com/a/2NktcTY

 

Iki Island DLC

 

Iki island explored Jin's backstory with his father which was nice considering we knew very little about him in the main game. You also get a new map, new amour and some new skills. However, now that I think about it, besides the decent story, the game could've introduced a new gameplay mechanic to spice things up and distinguish itself from the main game. Oh well.

 

Legends MP

I was pleasantly surprised with this mode. As a guy who plays SP games like 97% of the time, I thought Legends was amazing. Had tons of fun levelling up the 4 different classes to level 20 and partaking in survival maps, missions and raids with randoms. Would definitely recommend to try this mode out and the beauty of it all was that there were ZERO Microtransactions. Honestly, one of the best online experiences I've had and it never felt like it was a tacked on MP mode slapped onto a SP game. 

 

In summary, I thought Ghost of Tsushima was fun and deserves your time, but if mundane open world activities aren't your thing or you're hoping that the game reinvents the wheel in open world games and sets an example, then unfortunately, it might not be for you.