Most Recent Platinum

[crazywolf742]

my latest platinum was Marquette on the ps5

 

[NorthPaul93]

#67 Los Santos Legend

 

 

I've been wanting to play this one for quite some time so it feels good to finally get the plat and 100%.

Edited May 22, 2022 by NorthPaul93

[percy547389126yv]

#1,227 PS4 version of The Bat D

[TrophyHunt121]

after 6 long years i finally plat MGSV. Very happy with that right now

[Mizz]

Plat 47

a winters daydream  

[Moridin83]

 # 213 Newt One

 

This is a palate cleanser game. Useful to relax between long/frustrating titles, but without a ton of substance. I played it after finishing the Dirt 5 DLC, which really made me need something quick and simple like this. Controls are responsive enough, and its bright and cheerful looking. Short plat, only a couple of hours, so you'll be back to whatever long-play you've got going on refreshed and recharged (hopefully). Wouldn't buy for full price, but not a bad pickup on sale.

[percy547389126yv]

#1,228 Vita version of Memories Off-Innocent Fille-

[percy547389126yv]

#1,229 PS5 version of The Bat D

[DrBloodmoney]

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Last Stop

The sophomore effort from Variable State - developers of singularly peculiar, dialogue-free Walking Sim Mystery Virginia - takes a rather more traditional approach to narrative story-telling.
It brings in straight narrative (albeit, across an interwoven 3-story tract,) dialogue, player choice player-directed pacing...
...and unfortunately, falls markedly short of the high bar they set with Virginia.
Supremely short, in fact. 

 

Have you ever seen Southland Tales - the epically terrible second film from Richard Kelly, writer director of Donnie Darko? 
That film had the incredible legacy of not only destroying the significant credibility Kelly had built on the back of his superlative first film, but was, in fact, also able to directly tarnish the film that came before it. So misguided was Southland Tales - on so many levels - that it not only relegated itself to the bargain bucket of Blockbuster within twenty seconds of release, it also sent many viewers (including myself,) back, scouring though Donnie Darko in a new light. Suddenly, the aspects of Donnie Darko that were mysterious, or metaphorical, or open to interpretation felt lesser. The assumption upon first watch was that Kelly was a genius. We were layering on our own interpreted cleverness onto a mattress of smarts that Kelly had created. 
If Southland Tales was that bad, however, the question became: "Is Donnie Darko actually clever, or did we just projected cleverness onto the canvas of budgetary constraint-necessitated vagueness?"

 

For what it's worth, the situations are, I think, different in terms of extremity. 
In the case of Kelly and Donnie Darko, I do actually think the question was accurate. As anyone who has listened to the director's commentary for that film will know - Kelly isn't actually smart. He's kind of dumb. That movie was smart and cool by accident, rather than by design. (I still like it a lot, for what it's worth, but still!)

In the case of Last Stop, I don't think the game misses the mark by anywhere close to the level that Southland Tales did. It did send me back to Virginia with the same idea, but I concluded that  Variable State were, in fact, smart in their creation of their original game. 
Last Stop didn't tarnish that...
...but to be clear, while Last Stop is not so bad that it destroys Variable State's credibility beyond any hope of recovery, it is bad enough that it made me seriously question Virginia's awesomeness.
Even if I ultimately chose to believe Virginia to still be awesome... that's still quite a feat.

 

The game begins in 1960's London, with a young couple running from a policeman, upon whom they have played an annoying, but harmless prank. When fleeing through the tunnels of the London Underground, they open a doorway, and are confronted with some sort of portal to another world. They cross it... and that's that. We see nothing more of those characters for the time being. 

The meat of the game, instead, takes place in the late 90's. Three separate stories are told in episodic form, with the player able to select which one to play first, second or third. Once a chapter of each is complete, the same choice can be made for the order of each second chapter, then third, etc. That allows the layer some choice in which story to play right away, but doesn't allow one story to progress too far, before the others have a chance to catch up.

 

All three of these stories have really only two things in common: they are set in the same areas of London, and they are all concerned, in some way, with the "Unexplained". 
There is the middle-aged, single dad, who's body in seemingly magically swapped with the young, physically fit dude who occasionally gets his mail by accident, the teenage girl who, along with her friends, goes to spy on a strange man they are suspicious of, and end up holding an alien hostage in a derelict swimming pool, or (in the best vignette,) the middle-aged, sexually empowered employee of shady governmental agency, who's secretive work-life, fractious relationship with her father, and extra-marital affair is wreaking havoc on her marriage and mental health. 

 

All these stories are fine on paper, but unfortunately, a combination of clunky writing, unbelievable plot-twists or character choices, and at times shockingly ham-fisted line readings tend to diminish any real investment the player has with the characters. This happens right from the start - before any of the unexplainable or supernatural elements come into focus, and that is really problematic. Without investment with the characters on a human level, it becomes difficult to care when they start being put under emotional stress or find themselves in unusual situations. 

 

The visuals are not too bad, but never very impressive either. The rendering of London is pretty good, shows a good mix of areas of the city, and seeing a narrative game set in London is refreshing. There are some good, cinematic angles used, and that makes the city feel quite lively - though it does throw up an issue I've not seen as prevalent than this in quite some time: the changes in camera angle losing the character.  Not since the tank-control PS One days have I so often had a character either veer off in the wrong direction, or simply take a moment to actually find on screen than here. 
When the camera changes angle, all player control is relative to that new direction, and so if running down a street (for example,) and the camera switches to an angle from a side-street, (as happens often,) the character will suddenly veer to one side, as the relative controls swing around. 

 

The look of the characters is quite cartoony - though not in a bad way, I'll say. 
Expressions are exaggerated, in a way that gives the feeling of sims from The Sims 3 / The Sims 4, and this is something of a double-edged sword. In the case of the more comedic stories, it is a benefit. Where the narrative is more serious it tends to be a hinderance - though not a major one. If Variable State's previous game Virginia taught us anything, it is that cartoonish character models are not a blocker to serious story-telling when used well... here, the story is what gets in its own way, the visuals are secondary.

 

Audio-wise, a very rough mixed bag. The music is good across the board - there is original score and (I think) licensed songs, and both are used well, and add to the tone nicely. (If the writing had the tonal consistency of the score, Last Stopwould be in a much better position overall!) 

Voice work, on the other hand, is patchy in the extreme. Sometimes it can be quite naturalistic in individual lines - there were several reads where I was markedly impressed - but joined together as a whole, the writing and voice work is all a bit clunkily connected. A lot of line deliveries feels very unnatural or stilted. In addition to the characters often doing things that feel ridiculous or unmotivated, the consistency of the written lines follows suit, and pulls the delivery along with it. Lines can feel out of nowhere, and the tone they are delivered in wildly out of place given the surrounding ones, or the situation the character is in.

 

The biggest issue in the game, however, is not visual or auditory, but in the writing. 
I don't like to get into spoilers, but with this game, I need to talk about it to some extent. I'm going to tread lightly here, and avoid spoilers (I learned from my Life is Strange reviews that doing spoiler reviews is a waste of time, as no one reads them!) - so I'm only going to talk in the abstract. 
Hopefully this still makes sense!

 

The basic structure of the narrative in Last Stop is sound, and actually a very good idea on paper. The introductory vignette - seemingly unrelated to any of the main 3 narratives - sets a suitably B-Movie-esque tone. The notion of 3 separate storylines, all seemingly unconnected but taking place in similar areas slowly becoming more and more intermingled, until they finally coalesce and explain the original introductory vignette has a lot of merit. 

The issue here though, is not the premise, but the execution. 

 

Because all three stories are not only narratively dissimilar, but also tonally distinct - from one another, and from the hokey, deliberately silly introduction - the finale, when they all conjoin and intermingle feels jarring on three separate levels. 

All three main narratives stay relatively 'grounded' throughout. Yes, each deals with a sci-fi or fantastical element, but that element is treated as the unusual twist in an otherwise very pedestrian world. When the finale happens, it whisks all three stories into the realm of such out-there, Saturday-Morning-Matinee sci-fi, that it simply loses touch with any sense of investment the player might have built up towards the characters or their earthly lives. 

There is nothing wrong with pedestrian stories, magical realism stories, or out-and-out sci-fi nonsense, of course - all three can be fantastic - but a game being entirely one, then hard-turning to the other at the very end is taking a massive risk with audience investment... and Last Stop is proof of why. 

Imagine if the characters from Heavy Rain, in the final act, opened a door, and found themselves in a city from Ratchet and Clank. That is the vibe here. 
Both Heavy Rain, and Ratchet and Clank might be enjoyable games (to different extents, they both are,) ... but the tonal whiplash such a narrative manoeuvre induces would require a level of sophistication in the writing that few developers could achieve without losing the majority of the audience. 
I'd wager almost no studio could pull that off successfully... but if there are some out there capable of doing it successfully... Variable State aren't among them.

 

What happens, unfortunately, is that a game already precariously balancing on the knife-edge of audience engagement due to rough writing and patchy voice-work, trips over its own feet and PLUMMETS. 

I really cannot describer just how hard my eyes rolled, and how quickly my patience dried up when the game took its final swing... and I never recovered. Even as the game played out, limply crawling to the finish line, my interest had dried up completely.

 

It's a shame, as there is merit in Variable State, and merit in Last Stop on a conceptual level, but the game never capitalises on any of that, and only seems to go from mediocre for 90% of the experience, to dismal for the final 10%. 

 

A whopping disappointment all round, and one I'm highly unlikely to ever replay... even after I inevitably replay Virginia in the future!

 

 

 

(For original review and Scientific  Ranking see HERE)

 

Edited May 23, 2022 by DrBloodmoney

[DrBloodmoney]

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Manifold Garden

A virtual one-man-band developed indie puzzler from American artist William Chyr, Manifold Garden takes the infinite, impossible geometry of paintings by MC Esher, and applies their non-newtonian logic to a 3D spacial puzzle game - to pretty remarkable artistic and mechanical effect. 

 

I don't often start with talking about visuals, but Manifold Garden is a game where the visuals deserve to be mentioned right up front. 

Manifold Garden is STUNNING looking. 

The actual graphical treatment of the game is relatively simple - a geometric, blocky design, using pastel shades on magnolia and thin, stark black lines as definition - however, the intricate design of the geometry, and the infinite repetitions of it in every direction, combined with a slight anti-aliasing fog effect is mesmerisingly, hypnotically gorgeous to look at - static, and in motion.

 

The game explains nothing in text or voice over (indeed, there is remarkably little audio to be found anywhere in the game, outside of occasional cues to indicate movement of giant blocks, or cube connections,)  - all learning within the game is via visual cues, and the game does a remarkable job with this also. 
I'll get into the mechanical side of the game shortly, but for now, know this - Manifold Garden allows the player to "flip" the entire world in all 6 directions. The primary mechanic of the game involves flipping gravity around, and so requires the player to understand, at all times, which way is currently up/down/north/south/east/west. The way the game does this is smart - each of the six directions has a colour. The small reticule in the centre of the screen will change to the corresponding colour when facing a surface upon which the player can "rotate" the world, and when rotated to a specific gravitational axis, the whole world receives a slight change in hue to correspond to that colour. 
If the world is flipped to "Blue" gravity (Wherein blue cubes are movable, and blue rivers will flow,) the whole world has a slight blue over-sheen. If they then flip around to purple, or red, or green, the same logic applies. 
It's both a smart mechanical feature, (in a game as dimensionally confusing as Manifold Garden can be, a shorthand to remember which way is up is most welcome,) and also a nice artistic one - that the world looks great in all six variations of hue is an artistic feat in and of itself.

 

Mechanically, the game is pretty simple in nature, though anything but in terms of application. Manifold Garden works entirely on the basis of the aforementioned "gravity flipping". There is no jump button, and no fall damage. What there is is endless repetition of geometric space, and non-newtonian definition within that space.
If the player, for example, is facing a ledge, and wishes to move up to the top of that ledge, they cannot jump up. Instead, they can do one of two things - either flip gravity so the sheer wall is now the floor, then walk off it, flip gravity back to the previous orientation, to find themselves atop the ledge... or fall off the world, falling through the endless repetition of the geometry, to land on the upper section, above where they started.

 

While the game does introduce a few additional wrinkles into the puzzle solving as the game progresses - cubes that can be manipulated in one gravity axis, but not in others, or water that flows and can be redirected in one axis only for example - really, the fundamental core of the game remains consistent - the world flips at the player's whims, and they must traverse each of 7 worlds, placing power-cubes into sockets, until a special "god Cube" can be accessed, planted in its rightful place, to "grow" the next world from its seed.

It's a unique and interesting core concept, and one that works incredibly well when the game serves it with well defined puzzles, but can quickly become confusing when the game gets muddled.

 

The issue arises around establishing the definition parameters of a particular puzzle, rather than finding the solution to it. In some games (Portal, or The Turing Test, for example,) the parameters of each puzzle are clearly defined, and the player moves from one 'puzzle room' to the other, solving them. They are always confident when solving a puzzle what the limits of the defined area of puzzle is, and that anything they can currently access is a part of that puzzle. 

In other games, (The Swapper, for example) there are not discrete 'puzzle rooms', and instead, the whole world is there to be traversed, and traversing it is the puzzle - if you are progressing, then you are successfully solving the puzzles, and if you are not, then you need to solve something.

 

With Manifold Garden, however, there are both cases, and they can get easily jumbled together. There are discrete puzzle rooms to be solved, but the nature of the Esher-inspired style, is that traversing the world is also a confusing puzzle to be solved. Not only is there puzzle elements in simple traversal of the main path, there is also significant red-herring elements in both the discrete puzzles and the macro one - as well as the special, secret paths that make up the much more convoluted "Zero Percent" run throwing further spanners into the works.

Because of this, it can often be confusing for the player to actually discern what their goal is at any particular juncture. Without boundaries, (indeed, while there are some enclosed spaces where the puzzle 'rooms' are defined, most are open environments, endlessly repeating into the distance,) establishing if two puzzle areas are connected, or discrete, or simply steps in a single, traversal section is virtually impossible without significant trial and error. Getting lost in the labyrinthine maze of geometry is a virtual guarantee during this period. 

This in not an inherently terrible concept, however, it is an inherently confusing one, and one that can make traversing the game - particularly in the first playthrough - feel much more directionless and baffling than many players will likely enjoy. 

Often times, I found the most effective method of discerning a new space, was in fact to step off the world in a spot where I would not land on any geometry, and allow myself to fall infinitely, until I could establish where the "edge" of the world was, and where the repetition began. Doing this in all three primary axes would allow me to establish the rough layout of the enormous spaces... though of course, this becomes less useful once the game introduced non-newtonian elements, such as portals or pocket dimensions, where a door leads to a new area from one direction, but not from the other!

 

If the player is willing to give him/herself over to that confusion, however, and simply accept that feeling lost is a part of the experience, there is a lot to love in Manifold Garden... and for all the confusion, they will find the developer did go to some lengths to ease the burden somewhat. There are certain specific rooms, for example, with doors that can only be opened in a single gravity plane - forcing the player back to specific orientation for the next big puzzle, or areas where blocks cannot be carried through doors, thus giving a more clear definition of the boundaries of individual puzzles. 
This works cleanly for the most part in normal playthroughs... though the inclusion of the MUCH more convoluted and confusing "secret" solution (in which the entire game can, in fact, be traversed without the player ever placing the "God Cubes") means there is always the possibility for them to stumble into an area before the natural progression would take them there, and confound them!

 

This "Zero percent" run - to be clear - is stultifying. I played the entire main game without resorting to any guidance, and replayed it with a view to finding all the secrets for the "Zero Percent" run for many more hours... and as it turns out, found only a fraction of the secrets required for that run. 
When I finally relented and looked up some of the solutions, I was genuinely befuddled that anyone had EVER solved them. They are no joke - even for the puzzle enthusiast like myself - and given the relatively high completion rate of the platinum, I suspect the vast, vast majority of players have resorted to looking up some guidance when it comes to this particular run!

Overall, Manifold Garden is an absolutely wonderful artistic achievement, and a very solid, very clever core concept... which is put to use very well in some spots... but gets easily muddled or confused at times. Because the game is inherently confusing in pure mechanics, the mixing up of micro and macro puzzles, while interesting, tends to detract from both, rather than add to them. The sum of its parts adds up to more confusion than the game really needed to introduce.

 

That might sound like a call for easier puzzles, however, it isn't really. I actually believe all the discrete puzzles in Manifold Garden are pretty much perfectly pitched - not too difficult, and not too hard - however, the confusion tends to come not form the puzzles themselves, but from the bleeding of one puzzle into the other, and the player then being unable to define the parameters of either one.
That is not an insurmountable problem - a little trial and error, and a bit of time is needed, but it's not the most fun trial and error or time the game has to offer. In fact, it tends to get in the way of the best stuff the game has to offer. 

If a player is happy to deal with that though, they will find a truly unique, wonderful looking and extremely clever game in Manifold Garden - one that is filled with smart, fun puzzles, and sights unlike anything in any other game.

 

 

 

(For original review and Scientific  Ranking see HERE)

Edited May 23, 2022 by DrBloodmoney

[DrBloodmoney]

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Slay the Spire

A rogue-like Deck Building game and debut effort of American studio Mega Crit, Slay the Spire was originally released by Humble Bundle for Windows in 2017 to much acclaim... and subsequently released wide on all platforms in 2019, to even more. (Including a nomination that year for best Indie Debut at the game awards, which it ultimately lost to Disco Elysium, but is still not to be sniffed at.)

 

Essentially working as one of the purest possible forms of both the deck-builder, and rogue-like genres, the player takes the role of one of 4 characters - each of whom features their own specific set of possible cards, their own eccentricities, and their own strengths and weaknesses. 
The Ironclad serves as the game's "soldier" class, with a pure offence / defence move-set, and cards based around pure strength or raw defence, 
The Silent acts as a "rogue" with decks built around multiple small attacks and damage-over-time poison, 
The Defect, who's deck is built around his unique ability to "store" and "Release" energy of varying archetypes. 
The DLC-added Watcher, whose ability to switch "stances" proves her deck with some of the most esoteric, yet often tremendously powerful cards - providing the player learns the curious ways in which she can be played effectively. 

 

The eponymous Spire consists of 3 floors (or 4, if the player unlocks the secret 4th level!) through which they must navigate a path through a randomly generated map of different room types (featuring enemies / elite enemies / events / campfires etc -in a similar fashion to Curse of the Dead Gods,) all the while building up from a starter deck of cards that provide his/her moves available in battle by adding new cards through various means, in the hopes of outpacing and outlasting the ever increasing difficulty of the enemies, and ultimately defeating the boss.

 

In terms of many of the core aspects of videogames, Slay the Spire is pretty basic. Most notably, in terms of visuals. While there are some very nice designs in therms of the enemies, the actual visual component of the fighting in Slay the Spire is very, very simplistic. 
The player character and enemies do not animate - their flat, 2D sprites simple shunt forward as they attack, in a rather early-Final-Fantasy-like manner, and there is little in the way of variety in background images. This might sound incredibly basic and un-nuanced (and in that regard, it is,) however, the fact of the matter is that the visual component of Slay the Spire is largely immaterial in the flow of the game. Beyond the initial few hours, the player is likely never to be paying a single iota of attention to the physicality of the enemies, or their own cypher - so absorbed will they be in parsing the symbolic information displayed on the screen around those elements. 

 

At any point, a single enemy might have 6-10 specific symbols below them, each with a numeric value, indicating their status. The player might have another 10-12 of these. The top of the screen will, by the end of a run, be stacked with 10-20 relic symbols indicating various buffs, and each enemy will have specific additional information related to their next move, the strength of it, the dangers they pose...
...and all of that is in addition to the most important information - the cards in the player's hand!

These are actually the most important part of the game to get a nice visual treatment, as it is important that the player is easily able to identify which cards are which, even without having to read the descriptions. (Particularly so, when going for the speedy run achievement, where the player must play blindingly fast!) 
These cards all feature a symbolic representation on them, and these are a source of some nice artwork. There's also a really nice little addition to the game, whereby the player can view the "Beta" artwork (the original designs, prior to a professional artistic treatment,) and i they chose to, even substitute one for the other for specific cards, if they find one easier to identify than the other. 

 

Audio is pretty great in the game - there is nothing in the way of voice work, and little scope for big sweeping musical soundscapes, however, the music for battling and the audio stings for different attacks are much, much more catchy and good than they would ever have to be for this style of game, and that's a welcome surprise!

 

All those elements are tertiary though. The real meat is in the gameplay, and mechanically, the game is, frankly, nothing short of sublime. 

I cannot begin to fathom the intricate level of care that a game like Slay the Spire must demand of its developer - to be able to balance a game so variable that every card is potentially useful in different ways, and where every card can be positively or negatively affected not only by other cards, but by a litany of available buffs and combinations of buffs, potions, relics, enemy tactics etc. Not only does Slay the Spire manage to find that balance on a level I have not personally encountered with such aplomb since playing Klei's ingenious Invisible Inc... they do it 4 times over. Each character is their own unique version of the game, and each plays with a different rule-set.

All 4 decks and characters feels incredibly balanced and smart - allowing for massive over-powering, or under-powering, but only through player action, and never by simply design flaw - that it can only be the result of utterly painstaking trial and error, play-testing and an absurd attention to detail. 

 

That the game manages to present essentially the same basic bones of a game at every run, yet feel so wildly different after only a few battles and events based on RNG offerings and player choices is really impressive - and the fact that a game with such basic visual trappings managed to hook me as hard as it did - consuming my evenings for almost 200 hours - shows how finely detailed and variable the mechanical gameplay is.
I opined at length during the Invisible Inc review, about how ingenious I believed the balancing act of such a variable game was, in managing to remain engaging - be difficult, yet never oppressive, and manage to avoid being able to be "broken" by any specific player build. While I do not think Slay the Spire is quite as variable or quite as expertly balanced as Invisible Inc was, and doesn't quite reach those heights, (that's a shockingly high bar!,) I did find myself consistently thinking about Invisible Inc when playing Slay the Spire, and that should give an indication of the level of mechanical and balancing finesse on show here.

 

I've heard a criticism levelled at Slay the Spire: that it is a game where the player is playing against the RNG aspects more than the enemies.
The fact is, the RNG elements of Slay the Spire do invite the criticism that the difference between a successful run, and a complete trouncing at the hands of its enemies - is purely down to the luck of the draw. Whether the player has made enough penance to RNGesus, and will be rewarded with the right card and relic offerings to complete their desired deck, and rip their way through the final bosses. I understand the notion, but this is not a criticism I personally give much credence to.
Yes, RNG drops are a major factor in determining the success of a run, however, to attribute the difference between success and failure to RNG alone is to fundamentally misunderstand the intended player relationship to the game. The fact is, if the player predetermines what kind of deck they wish to build before beginning a run, then yes, their fate is purely a matter of waiting for a favourable set of drops. However, this is not really the "correct" way to play. Navigating the whims of RNGesus is, itself, the game. The player is not intended to predetermine the kind of deck they will create... they are intended to work with the drops they get, and craft a deck on the fly. Solving the problem of the RNG is a part of the experience of each run.

 

I am unable to state with confidence whether every single seeded run the game is capable of presenting is technically possible to complete (Lord knows, I died enough times to doubt it in my more rage-filled moments!), however, after around 180 hours and across several hundred runs, I am inclined to believe the vast majority are. Some might require more outlandish decks to be built, or more unusual decisions to be made, but I suspect that most are "solvable" even if that chances of this happening can be slim.
What it not possible, however, is to craft a specific deck within the confines of every seed. If the player decides they favour strength decks, rather than defence ones, and sticks rigidly to that idea, even when presented with mediocre strength cards, ignoring the good defence ones, they are likely to find the game putatively punishing. In the same way that a player of an RPG who favours only one team might find certain bosses insurmountable due to a lack of understanding of how to use other, more suitable characters, a Slay the Spire player who learns only one way to build a deck will find themselves blocked more often than they aren't.

What that means is, like any good rogue-like, the player is not only required to master some of the mechanics of the game in order to beat it, they must master all of them. They have no guarantee of being offered exactly the same deck twice. Without any guarantee that the weapon they want will be forthcoming, they cannot simply train with that one - they must train with them all!

 

In terms of the trophies, (I know, I know, but here, they need at least a mention,) it's worth noting that this will be a long one. Most trophies are esoteric affairs -  while they might be crushing to go for individually, hoping for a perfect set of drops, they will happen naturally over time with enough patience. 
However, one specific trophy - for beating "Ascension Level 20" is the potential blocker - both the hardest trophy, and the most time-consuming.

 

The Ascension levels are essentially a set of compounding debuffs. Ascension Level 1, which unlocks after beating the final boss with any of the four characters, will add more enemies to a new run. Beating that, and unlocking Ascension Level 2, will keep these extra enemies, and make all enemies more deadly. Level 3 makes Elites more deadly, Level 4 makes bosses more deadly, etc. etc. with each one retaining all previous debuffs, and adding a new one.
Each of these ascension "ladders" is available for each character, but they are independent of one another. If a player reaches Level 15 with the Ironclad, but finds themselves stuck, and wishes to try with the Silent, they need to start again from Level 1. 

 

This means that, even if the player is fantastic at the game, the Ascension runs are liable to take at least 20-30 hours. For most average players it's more than likely in the 100 hour range. (For me, it was about 130... shitty gamer that I am!)

That is no small commitment for the trophy-hungry. I will state that I unequivocally believe this to be a more than rewarding time - this is a case, like with Curse of the Dead Gods, where the journey is long and hard, but fun every second, as opposed to, say, RAD, where the game wears out its welcome long before the grind is finished - but it is a long time, and worth knowing for anyone going into the game with a shiny platinum as the goal.

Overall, Slay the Spire is a great game - and one that has been revelatory to me personally. 
It would be ridiculous at this point to describe myself as a "Deck Builder Fan" - I have only played this one, of course, and so really, I should more accurately be described merely as a "Slay the Spire Fan"...
...but the fact of the matter is, I'm now such a fan of Slay the Spire, that I know for a fact I will be checking out some more Deck Building games on the back of it.

 

That says something pretty great about a game. If it can both introduce a new player to a genre, and guarantee that they want to seek out more of them to recapture the feeling, that's a hell of a thing!

 

 

 

(For original review and Scientific  Ranking see HERE)

Edited May 23, 2022 by DrBloodmoney

[matrelli01]

Finally....

n. 10 MotoGP 21

 

 

Great game, really fun and an easy plat but Junior Team trophies are very annoying....

 

 

[DrBloodmoney]

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The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe

The 2022 "Ultra Deluxe" version of Crows Crows Crows' seminal work of comedic meta-gaming nonsense The Stanley Parable takes the original premise, re-builds it from the ground up in a brand new engine, adds a considerable wealth of new material to, enhance, further break down and cross reference the absurdity of the original game... and results in an experience that feels both old and new... and every bit as funny, pointed and absurdist as it was upon original release.

 

For those unfamiliar with the original incarnation of The Stanley Parable, the whole game was a funny, ridiculous take on the Walking Sim, taking comedic jibes at all elements of gaming - player choice, achievements and trophies, multiple endings, branching paths, secrets, content, the nature of repeat play, reviews... and most of all, the self-entitlement of us - the videogame players!

 

Essentially, The Stanley Parable functions as an iceberg of a game.
The visible tip is an incredibly short, relatively amusing yet fleeting "main" game, in which an office worker named Stanley is at his desk, gets up, notices his co-workers are gone, looks for them, then finds a mind control device beneath his bosses office, turns it off, then escapes into the sunlight. All of this is narrated by The Narrator - a soothing, English upper-crust voice, telling the player the rather dull story of Stanley. 

 

The hidden depths though, is where the meat of the game lies. When, upon completion of the short main game, the player is reset to Stanley's desk once more, and allowed to replay the game, they can opt to do things differently. 

When The Narrator states that Stanley took the left door, the player can elect to take the right one instead, resulting in exhasberation, or comment form the Narrator. 
When presented with a numeric keypad, the player can input the correct code, as learned in previous playthroughs, before The Narrator tells him the answer, resulting in comment. 
If they chose to consistently deviate form The Narrator's tale, more and more meta-conversation will ensue, with The Narrator beginning to comment and discuss the very nature of games, and player choice, and begin changing elements of the game to compensate for the players disobedience. 

 

This is all quite amusing, and often very smart in its skewering commentary on the ultimate pointlessness of much of the busywork of games in general, but what makes The Stanley Parable exceptional, rather than merely an amusing triviality, is the sheer depth of possible ways in which such a seemingly short game can be manipulated, and how many different actions have been accounted for with significant tracts of Narrator dialogue. 

Given that the game is seemingly so short - indeed, it can be completed in under 4minutes and 22 seconds, as one trophy shows - the wealth of different avenues of absurdity found via different combinations of actions is quite mesmerising. Stand in a broom closet without purpose for an extended period of time, and not only does The Narrator have lines of dialogue about it, he has LOTS of lines of dialogue about it - he will at first point out there's no reason for it, then sound exasperated that the player continues to do it, then go on a long diatribe about how it won't result in the "Broom Closet Ending" for you to tell all your friends about. 

Manage to squeeze into an unescapable section of the mind-control-room, and the Narrator not only has some dialogue about it - he has a whole composed song congratulating you for breaking the game before he resets it.

Keep consistently rushing through a section - in pursuit of a particular trophy - and The Narrator will know what you are doing, and talk to you about it.

That ethos - the idea that every possible thing a player might choose to do to "break" the game has been accounted for, and feeds into an overall meta-narrative on the pointlessness of game in general is incredibly well implemented and realised - to the extent that after 50 or 60 different runs, I am still able to consistently find new ways to upset The Narrator!

 

The addition of the Ultra Deluxe content, like the main game, also works on an iceberg design. After playing enough of the main game to see an "ending" of sorts, the player will find themselves able to access a previously locked door, to the "New Content" area. This begins simply enough, by taking a short route though some silly new concepts, primarily commenting on things considered "absent" from the original game in steam reviews by users. The inclusion, for example, of the "Jump Circle" in which the player is able to jump. 
This area, however, eventually opens up into a long meta-commentary on the nature of sequels, with The Narrator guiding the player though a sort of expose stall, showing off ideas for The Stanley Parable 2, and managing to skewer the nature of sequels and additional content with the same comedically barbed wit with which the original game skewered its targets. If anything, this area actually shows an even more absurdist and smart eye for detail, and continues the tradition of both addressing current concerns in the gaming industry, and being cognisant of the zeitgeist. 

 

The sequelisation aspect opens up the comedic stylings to other genres too - and to show off the developer's eye for detail. 
When, for example, The Narrator muses on potentially making the game more like other games, and temporarily transports the player to a near 1-to-1 replica of the firewatch tower from Firewatch, this is used to comment on the idea of Open World games... but is also a remarkably detailed facsimile considering it exists to serve a single joke. When, in reaction to that, he transports the player to a perfect recreation of a Rocket League stage, this is used to point out absurdities of challenge in sports games , but again, the attention to detail - in everything from the visual, to the physics of the Rocket League ball is pretty bang-on. As any fan of Zucker brothers films will know - parody works best when the thing being lampooned is recreated perfectly. The joke only really hits, if the same level of detail that went into the original thing, is present in the spoof.

 

The Ultra Deluxe content also feeds back into the main game, altering aspects of the main narrative in new ways, thus further extending the already hefty replay value of the original game. The gameplay remains roughly the same of course, but no one is playing The Stanley Parable for the mechanical gameplay. They are playing for the comedy, and knowing there is new lines to hear, or new elements to be uncovered is all the catalyst one needs to continue exploring the odd life of Stanley. 

Visually, the game is pretty basic - totally fine for what it needs, and often deliberately basic or "bad" in order to feed into the meta-jokes, though actually the few places where the game has the chance to flourish show that any time the visuals are bad, it is in service of the comedy. The game is perfectly capably of looking great when it needs to. The only difference here is, as opposed to virtually every other game, visuals are ONLY in service of jokes. There is never a flourish for the sake of pure visual engagement.

 

It's actually worth noting- and it is one of the real pillars that The Stanley Parable works to - virtually nothing about the office Stanley resides in is played for comedy. The actual office is deliberately, uniformly sterile and free of comedic flourishes. Comedy in the game comes entirely from parodying the game design elements, almost never from the situation. Unlike something like Jazzpunk, where the setting is as absurd as the game, the world The Stanley Parable takes place in is, aside form a few specific and fleeting flights of fancy in service of specific jokes, entirely ordinary. 
A big part of the comedic language of the game is that nothing in the game is inherently funny, but every aspect of game design is. There is no avenue of game design left unadulterated by jokes - from the settings menus, to the loading screen, to the sliders and tool tips upon loading, to the player choice elements - and particularly to the achievements and trophies - but having this all strung over such a pedestrian looking game is part of the joke. 

 

Trophies are a particular source of amusement, actually. The ridiculous things we gamers and trophy hunters are willing to do in order to unlock an achievement that is, to all intents and purposes, worthless, are a source of continual ribbing in the game, most pointedly via the trophy list itself. Trophies like "Super Go Outside" which requires the player to play the game after a 10 year absence (or, of course, adjust their system clock to fake that!), or "Get Your First Trophy" which is awarded for getting any other trophy are jokes on their own, while ones like "Click on Door 430 Five times" is used as the catalyst for a long, meandering fetch-quest within the game, where The Narrator will constantly dangle the carrot of the trophy, while getting the player to do a series of ever more ridiculous things, believing that trophy to be just one more task away!

 

Audio is minimal in terms of music - again, all music is purely in service of comedy - however, almost every joke in the game is heavily reliant on a good performance by Kevan Brighting as The Narrator - and he delivers every single time. His performance is brilliant - deadpan, syrupy smooth and consistent in not just hitting the jokes, but hitting them HARD. Without a good voice for The Narrator the game would simply fall flat, but it's virtually impossible, after playing the game, to imagine anyone doing it better. 

 

Overall, The Stanley Parable is really one of the true staples of comedy in games. It was upon release, and a decade of changes in the broad medium has done nothing to lessen its impact. The additional material added in the Ultra Deluxe Edition is of the same supreme quality as the original content, which is laudable in itself, but also adds cumulatively to the overall experience, resulting in a game that feels even bigger than the simple sum of it's two distinct parts. 

 

It hits comedically, consistently skewering the very things you and I love about games, but does it in a way that is pointed, yet ultimately good natured. It manages to point out the absurdities of an absurdity-riddled medium, while remaining a sterling example of it. 
That's hard to do, but The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe makes it feel easy.

 

 

(For original review and Scientific  Ranking see HERE)

Edited May 23, 2022 by DrBloodmoney

[percy547389126yv]

#1,230 PS5 version of #Sinuca Attack

[YinNYK]

#56 NBA 2K22 (PS4) 0.25%

 

 

Ultimate Collector (PS4)                         Kit and Kaboodle (PS5)

 

One of the first to get both plats for PS4 & PS5 versions of NBA 2K22, PS4 (0.25%) PS5 (0.53%)

 

Actually quite easy trophy list compared to previous 2K games, a few grindy and online skill based trophies and even a couple that kind of leans you into spending money on MyTeam packs but not nearly as absurd as the GOAT Collector trophy from 2K20 which required players to collect over 3000+ cards.

 

Getting both plats was actually impossible due to an oversight in MyTeam trophy (MyTeam progression transfers between both versions of the game) until 2K recently released a patch fixing it.

Might seem pretty normal for a game dev to fix a bugged trophy but in previous 2K games have been unobtainable since launch and were never fixed (2K17, 10) it's cool to see 2K actually somewhat care about trophy hunters now a days and fix trophies especially this late into the game. (2K23 news is expected to drop next month)

 

2 years in a row of NBA 2K plats hopefully i can continue it going into 2K23. ?

 

 

 

Edited May 23, 2022 by YinNYK

[EIdain]

 

 Platinum #78 - Unpacking

 

All Moved In - Common: 75.34%

I really loved this indie game. It has a pretty unique take on how to tell a narrative with some great environmental storytelling. That being said if you don't enjoy the actual act of unpacking and sorting stuff you won't enjoy this as the gameplay is pretty one note. The platinum is super easy, just beat each chapter and then there's a few trophies for interacting with certain things as you play. The chapter select makes getting any trophy you missed really easy.

Enjoyment: 8/10
Difficulty: 1/10
Playtime: 7 hours.

[NetoStyle]

#146

Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts 2

 

Extreme long-range sniping with targets over 1000m away. Cool stuff.

[F22-Razgriz]

One with the Truck
23rd May 2022
5:06:52 PM

 

#18 - Snowrunner (PS4)

Difficulty: 7/10

Grind: 8/10

 

After 4 months+ we are finally ONE WITH THE TRUCK 

Felt good to be back on track,  wise 

A mix of seamless to utterly frustrating 'Recover' moments due to unexpected tilt and flip here and there.

TBH, got some 'don't want to continue anymore moments' or 'burned our moments driving back and forth'.

 

But we grind and grind until we persevere. 

#18 was definitely worth the ride.

 

Cheers!

XF22Razgriz

[NetoStyle]

#147

GRAN TURISMO 7

 

I just got this one, this is my second Gran Turismo game since the very first one on the PS1, so it brings a lot of memories when I was a kid playing with my dad.  ?

 

[Suminya]

#337 - WRC 10 (PS4)

(Racing game platinum #91)

 

WRC 2021
Earn every trophy in the game.

[Jamescush147]

  Platinum 316 

SNK HEROINES Tag Team Frenzy
All trophies have been acquired.

16.31% Rare

 

Platinum in 2 weeks, 5 days

[Lightsp33d1987]

 

[percy547389126yv]

#1,231 PS4 version of The Legend of the Dragonflame Highschool Collection

[Infected Elite]

Platinum #147  Crysis 2 Remastered 

Platinum

Earn all available trophies for Crysis®2 Remastered

Edited May 24, 2022 by Infected Elite

[Intoner_Zero]

#164: Arcade Spirits

 

 

A surprisingly charming and pretty relatable visual novel with dating-sim elements, it's full of nods to video game and pop culture references. I like that the plot doesn't go off the rails into cringy fan service distractions that seem to permeate a majority of other VNs out there, it's mostly straight forward. Not that it matters if a player will just fast forward through everything, buuuut yeah.

 

The sequel will be coming out in a few days, that's pretty cool. I will definitely play that one someday~