Kill Your Completion v3. 0

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

3 minutes ago, DamagingRob said:

Well, I explained why I thought it was stupid; because of that dumb trophy.  This is one of those cases, where a trophy list will make you hate the game. I might end up just doing the rest, and never getting this one. 

 

Yesssss, forget about trophies, join the light side!

[Hemiak]

1 hour ago, BillyHorrible said:

 

Yesssss, forget about trophies, join the light side!

Whoa whoa whoa! We don't use derogatory terms like dark and light anymore. There is only our side and their side. 

[PerryToxteth]

Game No. 8

Life is Strange

 

 

Trophies Earned: 24/61 (36%)

Playing Time: 5+ hours

 

  Doubtful I will have a long break this weekend so better to post my final review while I have time.  I have a huge problem in this KYC event...I picked too many damn good games!  How am I going to get back to them all?!? So far though, this will be the first one I finish.  I just can't let the story sit for long without finding out the ending.

 

  I will keep my introduction to the story to a minimum to avoid spoilers.  You are a teenage girl in post-high school(?) named Max with a not-too-subtle last name of Caulfield. She is a kindred spirit to Juno, with her witty snark, and her friend base is very similar to Angela's (Claire Danes) from the 90s teen drama "My So Called Life."  As with most teenage girls, the story revolves around big problems and small problems. 

Gameplay: This is my first foray into this genre. I expected Everybody's Gone to the Rapture but I have now been informed it is an episodic tale similar to the Telltales games.  Not as much wandering as EGTTR, and much more collecting of intel from conversations. There are five episodes to the game. Complete all five and you will finish the story.  Unlike the previous few games I have played in KYC3, this is a game you want to block out a couple hours for.  No half-hour to kill quick-gaming for this one.  Be relaxed, sit back, and enjoy the story as it evolves for a few hours is optimal for this game. 

  Basically, if you can remember back to your childhood, the gameplay is like a choose-your-own-adventure book.  You will have conversations with characters and you will get to choose your responses to questions, or choose which questions to ask.  What you choose will affect the story, in deeper ways than I at first thought.  Choices I made early in the game are still affecting things after two full episodes.

Here's a few comments about the game, don't peek if you haven't played.

 

Spoiler

a few comments:

- The Twin Peaks references are endless. So far, Rachel Amber and Laura Palmer are twins.  Everyone in Twin Peaks and Arcadia Bay had a meaningful relationship with the missing girls, and yet we know nothing about either of them. And "Firewalk With Me" as graffiti? Too obvious. 

- EVERY character named Chloe in a film/show/ novel is fucked up. Every single one! Have you ever watched an episode of West Wing with Senator Chloe blah blah? No. It'll never happen. Once Chloe showed up in the story, I started having "Gone Home" flashbacks, and that's not a good thing. The Chloe aspect to the story is not my favorite so far...

- Blackwell is a tiny school, yet somehow won the NCAA Division I National Football Championship! Look in the trophy case! It's the same trophy! I wonder if Zachary is going pro after this season...

- The rewind power is a great feature in this game. A fun way to figure out puzzles, change conversations.  What a great idea!

 

Trophies: An unusual list of trophies but I really like how it works. There's 12 trophies per episode, one trophy per collectible as you progress the story. Explore your surroundings thoroughly enough, and you will find them.  I missed two in the first two episodes but don't sweat it, the game lets you replay each episode and you can choose which setting to start the episode in.  It took me seconds to find where the collectibles I missed were hidden (with the PSNP guide).

 

Final Thoughts: I hate to quit this early! I HAVE to know what happens! Two episodes in and I'm hooked. 

 

Stats Update After Game 8: (Pre-KYC3 Stats)

Games Completed/ Played:  67/42  (60/42)

Trophies Earned: 2211                       (2135)

Unearned: 507                                    (309)

Completion %:  79.25                        (85.93)

Rarity: 43.47%.                                   (43.14%)

 

- Technically, I have only played 7 games. Game 6 will be played on March 31.

 

On Deck: This War of Mine

In the Hole: South Park: The Stick of Truth

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 24, 2017 by PerryToxteth

[DamagingRob]

3 hours ago, BillyHorrible said:

Yesssss, forget about trophies, join the light side!

Lol. Well, I replayed Level 3 and nailed everything. Then Level 4 came, and one of my bounties got filled with holes before I captured him.. I just went ahead and finished the level. If I go for that trophy, I'll just use Level Select to clean up. But I'd like to actually make progress and finish the game. Not get so annoyed replaying levels, that I quit playing it entirely. 

[Kevvik]

4 hours ago, Jaguargenie said:

Personally, I like to forget that Episodes 1-3 ever even existed. They should be tossed into a pit and lit ablaze. 

That being said, start with New Hope! 

 

Agreed.

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #8

 

 

Day #3

Total Time Played: 2h 30m

Trophies earned: 20/51

 

Well, so far it holds true to being short. Still takes roughly 30m to finish a chapter. Now I'm at chapter 6, stopped after having to do another turret section at the end of chapter 6. Fuck that shit in any game, and with that I may as well dive into the evaluation.

 

The Good:

• has some interesting ideas and concepts (curved shots, dashing from cover to cover while also being able to enter bullet time at cost of adrenaline (that one ain't all that original, because well Max Payne is a thing)
• not a massive amount of collectibles, although I think I already missed a couple
• has chapter select
• can skip cutscenes (after watching them for a few seconds)

The Bad;

• way too short
• levels are dull
• boss fights are stupid. Essentially you have to shoot a boss until his healthbar depletes, it's always the same and thus really fucking boring
• the aim sensitivity is abysmal. No matter how much I adjust it, it's still way too slow
• it doesn't look all that good
• the controls in general feel somewhat jank
• turret sections... There aren't enough words to describe I much I fucking loathe those

 

I'm having a difficult time to slap a rating on this one for some reason. It's not even close to a good game, but it ain't terrible. I'M inclined to say it's worse than Deep Black though (which I thought was decent, except for the online bit). I guess this one is more of a  than a .

Edited March 25, 2017 by voodoo_eyes

[Hemiak]

Well, life up and bitch slapped me into next week. Had a family thing come up and long story short I have a bag packed and I'm flying out at 6am tomorrow. Not sure when I'll be back but won't be gaming until then or later. I'm sure I'll have time to check in occasionally. 

 

I'll play and post my last yep heard whenever I get back to normal. 

[MarkusT1992]

Game #8: Rebel Galaxy (Day 3)

 

 

What can I add to my first review? Let me think about it.

Yeah, I know! I finished a few main quest, more side quests, bought a new ship plus upgrades.

But let us elaborate this a bit more.

First the main quests. One of them told me to gather some meterials I forget the name. To do this you had two points in the universe to get them. The first one is a merchant ship. With this ship you have three options to get what you want. First one is, to ask for a trade. When you have to goods the merchant asks for you can trade. The second one is to buy them fom the merchant and the last one is to atack the merchant and take what you want if you win. Destroying amerchant ship shouldn't be that hard, you say? I don't know. Probably not if it just was the merchant, but he was accompanied by some mercenaries.

The completely other way to obtain your good is to go mine them for yourselfe. To do that you need a mining laser with which you can destroy theasteroids containing the materials.

That was my rout. Unfortunately I hadn't a mining laser so I had to buy one. First I bought a new ship to have more room for another tower, then I collected some money to buy a mining laser.

 

Just a few words about my new ship. It has room for three towers, five broadside cannons, is a bit slower than my first ship and faster. Overall it is better because of the better weaponery.

 

Collecing money takes a while. Through the side quests you get something between 2000 and 5000 at the moment. You certainly will get more in later universes. But I found a wayto get more money. There is a merchant's guild you can join for 10000. After joining you get access to the merchant's quest board. These quests resolve about trading. One quest I did was to deliver four robots to a station for 14k. You have to get them first though. The merchant guild had some robots in stock for 1611 each, so I bought four, delivered them to the station and got my 14k. A profit of roughly 8k for minimal effort.

 

There's still stuff to do I hadn't a chance to try like chasing bounties, pirate lords or warp to another universe. There's alosanother guild you can enter, the mercenarie's guild, for 30k but you have to reach the second universe.

 

At first I wasn't that fond of the game. But after playing it more during the three days I liked it better and better. It's still not a great game as I still don't realy like space games but it's not terrible either. I'm not sure about the rating of the game. I would give it a rating but it could go down to if it's going to be too repetitive in the quest.

I don't know when I will get back to this game.

 

Trophies: 5/38

Completion: 9%

Time played: 3h 52min 6sec  (The savegame has the time in it)

 

In another note I finished Root Letter and got the trophy. The endings were all great in their own way and totally differnt to each other.

I would say I liked the "A government plot" and the "Cursed Letter" ending the best. The "Bond of marriage" ending was great as well

I won't tell anything about the endings so you can experience them for yourselfe.

Edited March 24, 2017 by MarkusT1992

[Alpsmile05]

After finishing Super Toy Cars I decided to play some more Bully before it was time to move on to game 9.

 

Seeing I've gotten some trophies I need to update my stats before starting the next game:

 

Stats before game 9:

 

Total trophies earned: 3839 +7

Platinum trophies earned: 53

Games played: 145

Games finished: 65 -1 (They released another DLC for Rocket League)

Completion: 66.53 +0.01

Unearned trophies: 1577 -1 

 

I've won 7 more trophies in Bully (I must be nearly at the end of chapter 5 by now) and they released 6 new trophies for Rocket League so not much difference but still worth the update. And now on to game 9: Manual Samuel 

[PerryToxteth]

On 3/23/2017 at 4:10 PM, Myu said:

 

Didn't know about that  

 

Day 21 (Very Late) Final Review : Brothers : Tale of Two Sons

Trophies : 0/12 (0%)

Time played : 2,5 / 3 hours

Completion : 86.41% (- 2.57% since the beginning of the event)

Completion rate doesn't really count here as I didn't get a single trophy for this game yet.

 

 

I didn't have much motivation to play those last few days. I tried Brothers : Tales of Two Sons a couple of days ago for about an hour and I tried to play a bit more since then.

As a completionist, I find it harder and harder to leave a game I've started to start another one right away. I like to have some closure, don't play for a few days and get start a new one. This event is taking me out of my comfort zone !  

 

Brothers : Tale of Two Sons is about two brothers going on an adventure after leaving their sick father in the local healer's care. You can control Big Brother with the left stick/L2 and Little Brother with the right stick/R2. To solve puzzle and progress through the story, you have to learn to control those two characters simultaneously which made me cross my eyes more than once, especially when Little Brother and Big Brother switch sides and run into walls and cliffs until I find out that my brain is not adapting to the change.

 

 

 

 

I really enjoyed this game! My trick to avoid becoming cross-eyed was to keep the left stick character on the left side of the TV screen and the right-stick on the right side of my TV. That strategy works for most parts of the game, though there are exceptions. But sit back and enjoy, trophies weren't difficult to get in a mop-up. 

 

[PerryToxteth]

On 3/22/2017 at 5:40 AM, wtru9 said:

 

Game #7 - Tropico 5

Day 3 - Final Thoughts

Playtime - 6 hours

 

Now, onto my opinions of the game. Overall I've thoroughly enjoyed my time with it so far. I've always wanted to try an RTS game such as this, but most are on PC and tend to assault with you with a ton of information making it pretty daunting to get into. 

 

Glad you enjoyed Tropico! This is my favorite PS+ game I have played, though it was on my radar long before PS+.

 I was a Civ-aholic in college so this was a PS4 fix for my addiction.  I stopped playing Civ when I became a Dad because I am aware of Sid Meiers' superpowers and the irresponsible timesuck that he would have unleashed on me. 

 

Keep building docks whenever possible.  And start building high-end tourism spots when you can.  The greenest part of the grid will tell you the best place to build a luxury resort area (usually a beach). And don't you love the term "slob tourist?" Doesn't that describe Las Vegas or cruises perfectly? And yes! I read every word of your review!

 

[Kevvik]

Game #8: Demon Gaze

 

So I've gone further into this, opened a few new areas and saw a bit of "story".  After a particularly significant event where I momentarily turn into a demon myself, it is revealed that I was actually supposed to be born a demon but somehow developed a human heart and soul.  This means that I can still be the hero even though I will have to fight (dramatically in cut scenes apparently) becoming one myself.  The main lodgers trust me while the mercs don't. 

 

Other than that not much else has changed apparently. I have filled my party out at 5. Me (the gazer), a paladin who acts as my tank, a healer, a ranger and an assassin.  We go forth and dungeon crawl, come back and pay rent, sell stuff and rinse and repeat.  An interesting stat boost idea is furniture in your room which gives a stat boost depending on what you display in your room (only 1 item at the moment, we'll see if that changes).

 

The inappropriate behaviour has dropped a little bit lately since I caught the cat girl maid sniffing the manager's underwear so thank goodness for small favours.

 

Overall, this is a pretty generic dungeon crawler. I hope I will actually see some depth of story develop but I'm not holding my breath for it.  I'll keep going later for the platinum but it likely won't be through binge playing.

 

Time played: 10 hrs

Trophies: 12/41 for 17%, D rank

Rating: 5.5/10

 

Completion rate so far: -2.28%

 

Next up: Game #9: The Book of Unwritten Tales 2

[dmland12]

Game #8:  Divinity: Original Sin

Progress: 5/55 Trophies (7%)

Completion: 87.07% (-1.29%, -8.60% from start)

 

This game has more depth than any of the others I've played for this event...  the next closest is no doubt Fallout 4, but this one beats it by a mile in this regard.  After 3 days, I still don't feel like I have a good handle on the game!  I'm not complaining... depth is good, provided I have the time to sort everything out.    In any case, I barely made a dent into this one in just about every way. My completion fell 1.29% and I'm back on track to lose 10% or more for the event.  We'll see how the next two games go.

 

It's a turn-based RPG, with a lot of tactical options.  Really, just tons and tons of options, both in how you approach combat and how you build your characters.  The graphical style is a sort of top-down 3D like Diablo.

 

As I mentioned in my Day One quick-take, you have two main characters and the game is capable of being played co-op, but it's not necessary.  You can split your characters up, which has it's uses (evading traps, etc).  There's even a system for settling disputes if the two main characters disagree on an action to take (they play rock-paper-scissors modified by charisma and other stuff).  That's pretty neat.  It's a little silly arguing with yourself however.    Of course it's not all bad, as you can use this same system when arguing with NPCs as well.

 

Anyway, back to the main characters...  you play Source Hunters that have been called into the city of Cyseal to investigate a murder.  What's source?  It's some kind of bad magic and the people who use it are called sourcerers (get it?) and it's your job to track them down.  In any case, the wizard guy there thinks source was involved in the murder so he called in the source hunter.  The neat thing is that you really do need to investigate.  You can interview people, but to really get anywhere you'll probably need to do some somewhat shadier things, like breaking into suspects houses looking for evidence.  You'll need to be careful when you do this, as you don't want anyone to see you.  I'm not very far along in the story and don't want to spoil anything beyond telling you the basic setup.  But I will say there are a lot of sidequests you can find.  If you're just wandering around or exploring, you'll probably find something interesting.

 

Along with the two main characters, you can also have two others in your party.  So far, I've found 4 people that wanted to join me.  After progressing a little in the story, you're able to let them all join your cause and pick which two you want to adventure with at the time.  One very nice thing here is that everyone stays the same level, regardless of whether you're using them or not...  when you add them back into your party, they'll gain xp until they have the same as you do.  You can also hire mercenaries that will join you once you advance in the story a little.  So far, I've only hired one person (someone who could pick locks better than the rest of my party ).

 

Another neat thing is that you can trade with any NPC, not just merchants.  Most don't have much that's very useful, but they all do have a little gold, so you can sell them some junk if you want. Also, each NPC has an opinion of you and this can effect the prices of their goods as well as how much they'll pay for yours (there's also an ability that can help here).  Everyone so far has started out at the same standing to me (based on my reputation and charisma), but some like me much better after I did something for them.  You can also make them hate you if they see you stealing or trying to break into a house, etc.

 

There's also an extensive crafting system.  You can find books that will teach you recipes and you can also experiment with combining objects yourself.  There's also a trait system where your decisions can grant you different traits along with a small bonus.  And the combat system seems quite deep.  And there's a skill/spell system too.  Really, I'm having trouble talking about anything about this game without it trying to go all wall-of-text on me (and I don't really feel like I even have a good grasp on any of this yet).  So I'll stop here and leave you with a video of some of the combat.

 

 

[Mendant909]

Game #8

Days 2-3

 

Puppeteer is a quaint 2.5D platformer that unfortunately has a few structural problems that makes it irritating to play it. The story consists of some Earth child called Kutaro that is transported to the moon and, for some reason, a bear turned Kutaro into a Pinocchio-like puppet. Apparently the bear took over the Moon Goddess's place, somehow, and used pieces of her to empower his minions. Kutaro stole a pair of scissors called "Calibrus" and saved the Sun Princess and learned from an old witch that bringing the moon pieces together will allow the Moon Goddess to return to her normal form, and with that power Kutaro can go back to his normal fleshy life. It feels like Tearaway with its cutesy aesthetic but with an actual menace and motivation for the player character to succeed. The main problem with the story is how it's presented, with cutscenes taking several minutes to give the exposition and it's even worse in the middle of a level as I just want to play the game.

 

The tone of the game is definitely for young kids as one level taught the story of the Magikarp/Gyrados transformation and a bit more of Japanese festivals with cherry blossoms and taito drums. I'll give it kudos for actually trying to teach kids about other cultures and hopefully there are more levels that do those small details and not solely since it was developed by a Japanese studio. What I'm not cool with are the tutorials that treats the players like idiots. The teacher will give a long-winded explanation of the origins of the new powers, how to use them, and expect you to do their actions three times before moving on. Those actions have to be performed after they say to do them since doing them prematurely does nothing and it's going to be irritating replaying earlier levels. This is like the fourth game this month with bad tutorials and I'm just praying that the last two games don't screw up in that department as well.

 

The unique traits that Puppeteer brings to the platforming genre are the switchable heads and the use of Calibrus for combat and movement. Kutaro has the ability to switch heads and serve as his buffer against enemy attacks, but can be picked up in time similar to rings in the Sonic series. These heads are limited to three at a time so it's necessary to be careful as to which heads you carry as certain heads can open up secret pathways or bonus stages. Calibrus is the cool part of this game it's used to cut certain parts of the environment and it feels great being able to not only defeat enemies but using that tool to fall with style through the sky. There's been a few powerups since then but those have mainly been situational.

 

Puppeteer is pretty decent and at least this game has an endgoal that is clearly set up in the beginning rather than being spoiled by its genre entry. I wish the story was better integrated and I might just decide to skip it if the cutscenes keep taking longer than they should for this very simple story. I'm not dreading to continue to play the game but it won't be on my immediate list after the event.

 

23 hours ago, Myu said:

 

I enjoyed both of those games actually  

But I partially agree with you on the unlikeable characters. In FFXIII, I wanted to strangle Vanille, Snow and Sera but I really loved Fang and Lightning. Fang is still one of my favourites in the FF series (she's associated with Bahamut and her English voice actor doesn't suck for once ) Same thing for ToX, I didn't like the main characters but the Elize/Teepo duo and Alvin had interesting backgroung stories. 

We're still far from a FFIX. I loved all the characters, the story, the music, the visuals, everything. I wish they'd still make games like that. 

 

Sera? She turned to stone quite quickly; those love cutscenes with Snow must have really sucked for you. That or you played XIII-2 and yeah, Sera sucks since she doesn't much of a character like most of the XIII cast. As for Lightning, I never did get why people care about her since her arc was similar to the Red Ranger from Power Rangers Samurai of learning to be part of a team but not doing so until the end; that and boy are both of those characters bland. Fang, I'll give you that she looks cool and Bahamut was one of the summons that didn't turn into a motorbike or a stupid mechanical horse.  I did like that she brought the team together and actually acted like a leader, which is something Lightning should have freaking done since she's a soldier either out of duty or for profit like FFVI's Shadow. Why wasn't Fang and Vanille the leads instead of Lightning and Snow? I would have gladly taken the more interesting duo of longtime soldiers over bickering future step-siblings.

 

I'm guessing FFX didn't match up to your standards since it has THAT laughing scene, and Bender saying "ya" at the end of every sentence.

 

[Fitzquaid]

Game #8: Joe Dever's Lone Wolf: Console Edition

Days 1-3

 

(This slot was supposed to be Grow Home for me, but I really wasn't in the mood so I took inspiration from all the other rebels in the event and jumped to the end of my list.)

 

So @dmland12 played this all the way back at Game #1, but the difference between us is that when I was a tiny nerd, I loved gamebooks.  Fighting Fantasy, Choose Your Own Adventure, Lone Wolf, Virtual Reality, heck yeah.  I never really built up a collection, but I read whatever I could find in the library.  If anyone feels like checking out some old school Lone Wolf, some of the books are actually online at Project Aon. 

 

For those of you who missed this weird little hobby, the books were generally divided into numbered sections, and at the end of each section it would either tell you which to read next or give you a choice: "If you burst through the door, turn to paragraph 20.  If you wait and see what happens, turn to paragraph 73.  If you have the Kai power of 'making good decisions' and wish to use it, turn to paragraph 132."  Combat varied a lot between the different series, but since there was nobody to enforce the rules, you could always just decide that you definitely won and move on.  My personal favourite series was Fabled Lands; the gamebook equivalent of an open world game, you could freely explore rather than being locked into a specific narrative, with each book representing a different country or part of the world.
 

Anyway, given my history, when I saw that there was a console Lone Wolf game, it was on sale at a good discount, and the reviews were decent, I was happy to jump in.

 

My feelings about the game remind me of Murdered: Soul Suspect from the last KYC event - not a great game, but it has a certain charm going for it. 

 

I didn't make as much progress as dmland did, only reaching the end of Act 1, and I also found the combat harder on Normal than he described - maybe I'm just a slow learner, but I had to restart fights more than a few times.  Combat is pretty much the meat and potatoes of the game, compared to the books where you could avoid many fights; here, making smart choices seems more likely to give you an upper hand in the inevitable brawl rather than opening an alternate route.  Speaking of combat, I'm not opposed to QTEs in general, but relying so heavily on them feels a bit like busywork that could easily outstay its welcome.

 

Non-combat elements: the writing is perfectly fine and the presentation of the narrative sections is good with illustrations and maps.  The lockpicking minigame is... a lockpicking minigame, so unlikely to be fun in the first place, but it's basically identical to the Fallout 3 version iirc.  The inventory system and the controls in general feel a bit odd, which reminded me that this was a mobile game first before coming to the PS4, but nothing too obstructive.

 

If you want more in-depth comments on the game, go back and check out dmland's review at the top of page 18 of the thread.  For me, I don't think I'll be going for the platinum (the hard playthrough with this combat system sounds pretty daunting) but I'll probably try and finish the game at least.

 

Personal Rating:

Time Played: 2.5 hours

Trophies: 8/49 (13%) - Rank C

 

Next up for me is Doom which I'll start later on today.

 

1 hour ago, dmland12 said:

Game #8:  Divinity: Original Sin

 

Glad you're enjoying this, it's a really interesting game that's definitely doing its own thing.  I'm hoping to go back and finish it in the next few months.

 

Edited March 25, 2017 by Fitzquaid

[Myu]

1 hour ago, Mendant909 said:

Sera? She turned to stone quite quickly; those love cutscenes with Snow must have really sucked for you. That or you played XIII-2 and yeah, Sera sucks since she doesn't much of a character like most of the XIII cast. As for Lightning, I never did get why people care about her since her arc was similar to the Red Ranger from Power Rangers Samurai of learning to be part of a team but not doing so until the end; that and boy are both of those characters bland. Fang, I'll give you that she looks cool and Bahamut was one of the summons that didn't turn into a motorbike or a stupid mechanical horse.  I did like that she brought the team together and actually acted like a leader, which is something Lightning should have freaking done since she's a soldier either out of duty or for profit like FFVI's Shadow. Why wasn't Fang and Vanille the leads instead of Lightning and Snow? I would have gladly taken the more interesting duo of longtime soldiers over bickering future step-siblings.

 

I'm guessing FFX didn't match up to your standards since it has THAT laughing scene, and Bender saying "ya" at the end of every sentence.

 

 

I've platted all three FFXIII (the first two on XBox I think and the last one on PS3).

I like Lightning because she's a badass that doesn't get all sentimental every time something happens. She does what she has to do and she doesn't bother with other people's feelings. I like her because her character is very different from the usual mains you get in JRPGs (especially the Tales of long string of goody-goody-always-happy characters, except for Yuri, Yuri is great!). It's nice to have an adult as a main in a JRPG sometimes. On the other hand, FFXIII's story didn't leave that strong of an impression on me. Having Fang and Vanille as the leads would have been interesting  

 

I have a strange relationship with FFX. Everytime I see some videos on Youtube or when someone talks about it, it makes me want to play the game again. There is only one thing in this game that I can't stand : Tidus. Stupid, stupid ever-optimistic Tidus, cringy-as-fuck Tidus that should have been born with a mute button. The other characters are fine. I have a soft spot for Kimahri and Auron. The story is great, the music is great, the Chimeras are awesome, the sphere grid system is an excellent idea. 

[wtru9]

 

Game #8 - Gravity Rush (Vita)

Day #3 - Final Thoughts

Playtime - 5ish hours

 

Unfortunately I've been feeling a little under the weather lately, so I've been trying to rest up as best I could rather than playing games so I didn't play/ update my thoughts Gravity Rush as much as I wanted to. Nonetheless I got about 5 hours in, so I think I've got a fairly good grip on what the game's about.

 

The basic premise of the story (to avoid spoilers) is that you appear to have amnesia, and you're trying to establish a sense of self and belonging whilst also solving the weird mysteries surrounding the town you wake up in. To aid you in your quest is your magical cat "dusty" who gives you the power to shift the direction that gravity acts upon you and nearby objects/ people. That's the mechanic the game mostly revolves around, so effective use of this is crucial to completing combat, stealth and chase objectives. Overall it's a pretty enjoyable, and the ability to shift gravity is a relatively unique mechanic as it's the first time I've experienced this in a 3D world (I think I've played a 2D platformer with a similar gravity mechanic before, can't remember what it was called), and it works very well and runs smoothly, even with the Vita's limitations. But naturally, what you lose in graphical performance on the Vita is more than made up for by the fact that it's portable. Practically the only reason I got any significant time on this game was because I could play it lying in bed ).

 

Not too much else I really need to say about this (although I am quite tired, and really want to get to bed ). The story is a little zany at times, but it's intriguing enough to make me want to come back for more, even if Kat (the MC) has her annoying moments. I also find it amusing that you have an ability where you can pick up anything in a static field around you and carry them along with you, especially because you can pick up and carry civilians. You also pick up and change the direction of gravity of nearby civilians as well, which can often send them flying off of the edge of the map. For these reasons I think the local residents are fully justified in being worried and critical about Kat's powers and intentions over course of the story. I mean, I know I'd be concerned when a supposed 'good guy' has a total disregard for human life like that .

 

Overall I've enjoyed my time thus far, and I'll probably try and go back and complete the game and pick up the platinum after the event has finished (and I'm a bit healthier). For that reason I'm giving Gravity Rush a .

 

Next up: This War of Mine

 

7 hours ago, PerryToxteth said:

 

Glad you enjoyed Tropico! This is my favorite PS+ game I have played, though it was on my radar long before PS+.

 I was a Civ-aholic in college so this was a PS4 fix for my addiction.  I stopped playing Civ when I became a Dad because I am aware of Sid Meiers' superpowers and the irresponsible timesuck that he would have unleashed on me. 

 

Keep building docks whenever possible.  And start building high-end tourism spots when you can.  The greenest part of the grid will tell you the best place to build a luxury resort area (usually a beach). And don't you love the term "slob tourist?" Doesn't that describe Las Vegas or cruises perfectly? And yes! I read every word of your review!

 

 

You don't know how close I was to buying this game pretty much every time it went on sale before it came to plus. I'm pretty sure I even added it to my cart at one point before deciding against it (glad I did in the end). I've got 4 docks built at the moment and another dry dock in between them all. Haven't focused on the toursim aspect at all so far, so I'll try and get on that as I progress in the Cold War era. Tropico also has a wicked sense of humour at times, which I totally forgot to outline in my review .

 

I've only played about 5 hours of Civ 5, and that's about the extent of my time with that series. Enjoyed it well enough, but my computer at the time struggled to run it at a rate that didn't frustrate me. (I also may have prematurely declared war on a war-like race before I was well enough prepared ). I really should try and get properly into it at some point, I mean, any game by the same people who make XCOM has to good, right?

[PerryToxteth]

2 hours ago, wtru9 said:

 

 

I've only played about 5 hours of Civ 5, and that's about the extent of my time with that series. Enjoyed it well enough, but my computer at the time struggled to run it at a rate that didn't frustrate me. (I also may have prematurely declared war on a war-like race before I was well enough prepared ). I really should try and get properly into it at some point, I mean, any game by the same people who make XCOM has to good, right?

 

Try Civ 2 or Civ 3.  Civ 2 was the heroin of my college days, I just needed a constant fix.  Civ 3 expanded and added some decent ideas and eliminated stupid combat things like your tank being defeated by a catapult.

Civ 4 really went down hill in my opinion. They "Madden"ed it, meaning they added features not necessary. Haven't played 5. But if your computer is having trouble, try Civ 3. 

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

Game #9: This War Of Mine: The Little Ones

First day
Total playtime: about an hour

 

 

Played an hour of This War Of Mine and it's really cool. Not going to write much on it yet since I'm not done for today but I probably won't have time to write this evening so...

 

Each day is divided in two parts:

 

• Day: you improve your safehouse, feed people, bandage wounds, et cetera.
• Night: you pick people to sleep or guard the safehouse, and you could pick someone to go out and scavenge, in which case you'll control that person during the scavenge.

It's simplistic but effective, it has no tutorial and the graphics are nice. I could do with a bigger font, especially for the character statuses but now I'm just nitpicking.

 

First impressions are really good, hope the game can keep it up. I'll have to start with redoing the last day because my last night, I started on a lawn with some stuff right therw and I accidentally clicked the leave icon instead of the scavenge icon...

Edited March 25, 2017 by BillyHorrible

[dmland12]

6 hours ago, Fitzquaid said:

So @dmland12 played this all the way back at Game #1, but the difference between us is that when I was a tiny nerd, I loved gamebooks.  Fighting Fantasy, Choose Your Own Adventure, Lone Wolf, Virtual Reality, heck yeah.  I never really built up a collection, but I read whatever I could find in the library.  If anyone feels like checking out some old school Lone Wolf, some of the books are actually online at Project Aon. 

 

I really loved the Choose Your Own Adventure stuff as a child and probably checked out every such book my middle school library had over time.  I had considered mentioning this in my Lone Wolf review, but there were considerable fewer random deaths in Lone Wolf and I didn't really think of them as gamebooks.  I had never heard of any of the rest of these gamebooks or the term itself before.  

 

As for the combat in Lone Wolf...  I didn't mean to make it sound too easy and I certainly did die during my playthrough!  Anyway, I agree that hard difficulty will be hard indeed...  probably not much room for error and lots of deaths.

[DamagingRob]

Day 3

 

Late final update, but here we go. I played 3 more levels, of which there are 18 in total. They seem to be fairly short, around 20 minutes in length. The story has picked up a bit, and given Jango some personality. So, that's good. The first 3 levels didn't have much story at all. 

 

Basically, this game is a 3rd person shooter. You have your blaster pistols, which you can lock onto enemies with, and move side to side to avoid their bullets. You're also given a flamethrower, and some kind of weapon that instakills an enemy. But only has 5 shots per level. You can pick up some other weapons, that also have limited ammo. I've used a blaster rifle, grenades, and a grenade launcher so far. 

 

Then you have your items for identifying and capturing bounties. An ID scanner is used to locate them, and once marked with , you can pick them up dead or alive. To pick them up alive, you first have to tie them up with your whipcord. Some are worth more dead than alive, and vice versa. Which makes the whole "catch them all alive" trophy even more dumb. It goes against the design. 

 

The controls take some getting used to. You can only equip one item at once, so you're constantly fumbling around when switching to your blaster pistols, whipcord, ID scanner, etc. And there is some odd platforming, utilizing your jetpack with limited fuel, where you will likely fall to your death some. 

 

But it's pretty fun, despite its flaws. I'm between ratings, on this one. It's between a  and a  for me. 

 

Time played: 5-6 hours.

Trophy progress: 3/13 for 14%(already an A rank; people did not put a lot of time into this one..)

Did it lower my completion? Yes. 

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #9

 

Day #1

Total Time Played: about 2h

Trophies earned: 2/32

 

Well, it's time to piss a lot of people off I guess. I generally try to leave the opinions on the game for the final day, but fuck me this is one of the most boring RPGs I've ever played. Maybe my expectations for this were too high, or maybe it would have a different impact on me, if I had continued playing it on PS1. What's certain is, that it doesn't hold up at all.

It actually feels like a chore to play this, as it's just feels so damn tedious.

 

Anyway I'm now in sector six, at the small town with all the shops. Wanted to get the bits for the costume, but I can only get one it seems. The NPCs for the others won't talk to me, so that's great. I'm currently level 11, as random encounters tend to pop up every 5 seconds. I also have 3 companions, well they keep changing according to the section of the game I'm in it seems. Hopefully the game picks up the pace, otherwise it's gonna be nothing but disappointing.

[NebbyLunala]

1 hour ago, dmland12 said:

 

I really loved the Choose Your Own Adventure stuff as a child and probably checked out every such book my middle school library had over time.  I had considered mentioning this in my Lone Wolf review, but there were considerable fewer random deaths in Lone Wolf and I didn't really think of them as gamebooks.  I had never heard of any of the rest of these gamebooks or the term itself before.  

 

As for the combat in Lone Wolf...  I didn't mean to make it sound too easy and I certainly did die during my playthrough!  Anyway, I agree that hard difficulty will be hard indeed...  probably not much room for error and lots of deaths.

 

Wait, hold on... I think I remember reading one of those books back in my youth, I think it was where you explored a city and tried to find a way through the city but needed four codes for a chant that would open the lock at the other gate. I really enjoyed gamebooks myself before I got into video games.

[DamagingRob]

1 hour ago, voodoo_eyes said:

 

I held it in, with the Wanted and Puppeteer hate. But this.. FF7 changed my life at the age of 13. Was nothing short of amazing to me, and got me into the series. 

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

Game #9: The Sims - War Is Depressing And So Is Life Edition

First day - part two
Total playtime: about three hours

 

 

Okay, short update then before I sign off for the day because we'll have visitors...

 

At the start of day ten now. Holy shit, are things getting real. I murdered an old couple for their stuff which got all my own people sad, then people started attacking us which made them wounded and depressed, so I had to attack and kill a different group so I could finally get some weapons myself, and now my runner is actually "broken". Holy shit!

 

Also made a distillery so I could produce moonshine; I looted a bottle at the senior's home and apparently it's worth a lot to our frequent trader.

 

I checked my trophies afterwards (didn't look at the full list beforehand) and apparently I obtained a trophy for giving in to addictions even though I let nobody have alcohol, sigarettes or coffee.

 

Great game and the difficulty cure is not so steep that I feel like giving up even though it's not what is usually my type of game. I'm enjoying it, even though I have a feeling that I'm on the very wrong side of the hero-antagonist spectrum - in survival games I always take a pragmatic approach, but never this pragmatically dark.