Kill Your Completion - CYOA

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

Okay, I think it's about time that I wrote about my rating scale again.

 

I started out on this five point system:

 Awful piece of shit. Watching paint dry would have been more interesting.

 Just bad. Not horrible but it leaves a sour taste. And not the good kind of sour, like lemons.

 Mediocre all the way. Too mediocre to even compare it to something, just like... uhm...

 Fun game, great while it lasts. It can brighten even your bad days. Just like pizza.

 Reaching unsafe levels of awesome:

Spoiler

 

It's been noted however in KYC3, that a lot of us (including myself) needed to do a double rating like  for the games that were somewhere in between.

 

In the end, I decided I'd use a thirteen-point sliding scale, comme ça:

 

 

... And so on, until reaching the epitome of bad games:

 

I'll be using this three-trophy system once more, feel free to use it yourself.

 

[dmland12]

8 minutes ago, BillyHorrible said:

Okay, I think it's about time that I wrote about my rating scale again.

 

I started out on this five point system:

 Awful piece of shit. Watching paint dry would have been more interesting.

 Just bad. Not horrible but it leaves a sour taste. And not the good kind of sour, like lemons.

 Mediocre all the way. Too mediocre to even compare it to something, just like... uhm...

 Fun game, great while it lasts. It can brighten even your bad days. Just like pizza.

 Reaching unsafe levels of awesome:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

It's been noted however in KYC3, that a lot of us (including myself) needed to do a double rating like  for the games that were somewhere in between.

 

In the end, I decided I'd use a thirteen-point sliding scale, comme ça:

 

 

... And so on, until reaching the epitome of bad games:

 

I'll be using this three-trophy system once more, feel free to use it yourself.

 

 

Are those Dino Riders?  Wow, I haven't thought of those in a long time.

 

(Also, interesting scoring system.)

[crimsonidol38]

10 hours ago, MosesRockefeller said:

EDIT: I just re-read your post and realized you might have meant you were surprised to see my pick most of your suggestions. Well, they were all games I wanted to try anyway (I did buy all these games, so it's not like any of them were PS+ freebies I didn't necessarily want to play). So I just needed a little nudge in the right direction.

 

Yeah that's what I actually meant. It's a bit hard for me to write down what I actually meant.

Oh and happy birthday!  

 

9 hours ago, Spider5786 said:

Just played my first hour of Yooka Laylee and it's about what I expected, a 90's style platformer with lots jumping spinning sliding and collectable hunting. The camera has been panned in reviews of the game but I haven't had any trouble thus far. My one real gripe with this game is the seriously outdated voice acting, the voice acting in this game is just stupid childish sounds bound to drive you mental, the x button to skip dialogue will be your saviour in these scenes. I understand that many games in the 90's used this style of sounds but the best games of 90's had real voice acting playtonic has been lazy in this aspect and this seriously detracts from the experience. 

 

I partially agree with you. Like Markus I think that a spiritual Banjo-Kazooie successor needs the voices but there were a few instances where I just would have wished that they kept their mouth shut. Mainly when I had to hear a sequence over and over again cause I had to redo a mission. I hope that the devs will release the patch soon. That should give the option to mute the voices and skip cutscenes.

 

 

 

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

2 hours ago, dmland12 said:

 

Are those Dino Riders?  Wow, I haven't thought of those in a long time.

 

(Also, interesting scoring system.)

 

Yeah, those are the official Dino Riders (though I think I found them when I just googled for "most awesome thing ever" or something like that), one of my favourite shows as a kid.

 

I typed out the scoring slide completely last time but I'm on my phone now and didn't feel like it

 

I think it's a pretty decent system, and easy to use. I still can't figure out what to make of the US letter grade system.

[Edunstar84]

 

- First Impressions - 

 

Playtime: 4.31 hours

Trophies: 3/50

 

I read about Mugen Souls Z before I bought it, and what one reviewer/commentator mentioned was that it was a cross between Disgaea and Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2. Never played Disgaea, but I definitely get the HDN mk2 reference. The premise of the game is that Syrma (main character you control), Lady Chou Chou, and a host of other characters have to conquer 12 worlds to get Syrma's and Chou Chou's powers back. 

 

4 hours may seem a lot, but I swear it could give The Lord of the Rings a run for its money. There's so much text to read. Very funny, but long. My fave quote has to be, "I'm about to peon your asses". LOL! Now imagine a cute, chibi girl saying that as she rushes into battle. Hilarious! Not all of the convos have gems such as this, but still quite enjoyable.

 

Graphics: At first glance, you might think this is an old game, but plays out like an HDN game: 2D character events and cutscenes added with a 3D Syrma walking around a dungeon map. I have yet to see the world/galaxy map, but I assume it'll be the ship moving around to each world. There aren't any physical towns you travel to, and all your shopping needs are in the spaceship. 

Battle System: A turn-based battle where you freely move around in order to damage your opponents - again, just like in HDN mk2. There's also a special battle mechanic, called Captivate. You charm your opponents to capture them as peons. Depending on the enemy's form, they will be easier or hard to capture, unless Syrma change's her form, as well. These include Sadist, Masochist, Bipolar, Ditz, etc. You see, Syrma has to charm them with 3 poses to capture them. Once they are enthralled, a coffin (you have to play the game to understand) appears and grabs the enemy and throws it inside. 

Soundtrack: Very happy and light, nothing to write home about though. I do recognize some of the sounds and the battle themes. If you've played any of the Compile Hearts games, you probably know what I'm talking about.

Trophies: Still can't believe such a cute game hides a handful of ultra rare trophies. I don't think this game is necessarily hard, just grindy. 

 

Overall, I would give this a 8/10. Am having fun and nothing's too difficult. Also, I downloaded over 10 DLC packs for the game, which helps a lot. Might not have to grind so much in the beginning.

 

Edited July 4, 2017 by Edunstar84

[MosesRockefeller]

5 hours ago, BillyHorrible said:

Okay, I think it's about time that I wrote about my rating scale again.

 

I started out on this five point system:

 Awful piece of shit. Watching paint dry would have been more interesting.

 Just bad. Not horrible but it leaves a sour taste. And not the good kind of sour, like lemons.

 Mediocre all the way. Too mediocre to even compare it to something, just like... uhm...

 Fun game, great while it lasts. It can brighten even your bad days. Just like pizza.

 Reaching unsafe levels of awesome:

  Hide contents

 

It's been noted however in KYC3, that a lot of us (including myself) needed to do a double rating like  for the games that were somewhere in between.

 

In the end, I decided I'd use a thirteen-point sliding scale, comme ça:

 

 

... And so on, until reaching the epitome of bad games:

 

I'll be using this three-trophy system once more, feel free to use it yourself.

 

I like your system, but geez it's highly specific! I think 10 points is good enough for me. But then I've always had trouble rating things, like when my buddy and I rate Beatles albums or Simpsons seasons... I always feel like my choice is highly arbitrary. 

 

Do we need to post something before starting each new game? I wasn't clear on that part from the rules. 

 

Anyway, I'll do it for the first 2 games and drop that if I find out it isn't required. 

 

I intend to play my games in order of the list, unless something weird happens. Today I'll start on Abzu, and if I have more gaming time than expected, I'll start Hell Yeah. Last night I checked my PS4 and PS3 to make sure I had all the games installed (and the disc for Prince of Persia Sands of Time, my only non-digital choice). The only Vita game is Salt and Sanctuary but it's cross-buy on PS4 and I have both versions installed. I'll probably start with the Vita version just to give it some love, but switch to PS4 if the game is too unplayable. 

 

Abzu

I don't know much about it apart from it being an underwater, relaxing game. It looked interesting so I bought it and quickly forgot to start playing. The only "relaxing" genre game I recall playing is Flower, which I enjoyed a few years ago. 

 

Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit

I don't know much about Hell Yeah besides it having a kick-ass title and it being a 2D platformer, which is one of my favorite genres. I looked forward to trying it out. 

Edited July 1, 2017 by MosesRockefeller

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

DAY 1:

Burning Rubber

 

Mad Riders is a quad racing game from 2012, and even at the time it wasn't exactly top of the line. It seemed to be an okay racer though, so I was willing to give it a shot.

 

Oh, how foolish of me. I had fun coloring in my quad (all pink), tried finding a rider whose clothes didn't clash too much with the quad color (why I can color in every part of the quad yet have to choose between a couple of generic clothed guys that can't be customised remains a mystery), and I started the first race. The game itself was not too bad - very dated graphics, controls were kind of bad but the overall feeling was okay - but before finishing the first lap, the game froze so hard I had to turn off the PS3 by holding down the power and eject buttons. Now I've experienced a freeze or two in big open world current gen games when much was happening on the screen, but in a game like this and this early on it's inexcusable. It earned the game a fast express ticket to being deleted from my PS3.

 

Stats

Playtime: about ten minutes

Trophies obtained: 0/15

Completion Percentage: 0% for an F rank

Score: (a low quality game freezing this soon does not deserve more)

 

 

BlazeRush was, thankfully, a much better experience than Mad Riders. It's a stick racer with short laps and lots of weapons.

 

Playing for an hour, I was very entertained by the game. About fifteen minutes was spent trying in vain to get connected to others though, from other sites I've gathered that a host needs a wired internet connection or players don't get through a firewall, so I may have to boost the one online trophy.

 

What's to say about the game? It's not great, but not bad either, it's silly mindless fun. It's something to play when you don't feel like playing something that demands a lot of brainpower, it's not perfect by far but it doesn't need to be. I can see myself going a few rounds in this every once in a while, perhaps even playing offline co-op. Too bad only the PS3 version was on PS+ though.

 

Stats

Playtime: about an hour

Trophies obtained: 2/21

Completion Percentage: 9% for an E rank

Score:

 

 

Driver: San Francisco is one of those games of which I still don't know why I've never played through it. I'm into the racing genre, the game is set in one of the few cities in the USA I've actually been to and it provides many different activities.

 

Starting the game for the second time, the first time being on the X360 (where I played for about 15 minutes or so and got distracted by other games before I could play more of it), I once again realise this really is a game I should have played much earlier. The game is from 2011 but the graphics look much better than the other two games I played, both of which were released later and need to show much less than this open world racing game.

 

I've played for about an hour and it's been a lot of fun, the game is not perfect but it's really good and really entertaining. The whole shifting aspect makes the game instantly unique among racers as well, can't wait to see how they'll keep that hook interesting.

 

Stats

Playtime: about an hour

Trophies obtained: 5/51

Completion Percentage: 7% for an E rank

Score: ❔ (will try to play more this week to figure out if the middle trophy is or )

 

 

Optional Bonus Game 1

Neon Chrome is the first optional game I started. I had a bit of extra time because of Mad Rider's epic freeze fail, and decided that this one would be the most interesting.

 

Sadly, I only had about fifteen minutes to play (off to the cinema later and I wanted to write this post today) and I didn't get very far because apparently this twin stick shooter does not allow for any mistakes. It's already not my kind of genre and the developers have made some choices for this game that make it even less interesting to me.

 

I'm not ruling out a second chance for the game later this week but I'd actually rather return to Driver than play more of this.

 

Stats

Playtime: about fifteen minutes

Trophies obtained: 0/14

Completion Percentage: 0% for an F rank

Score:  (may still change, took me a while to get accustomed to Flame Over as well)

 

 

 

END OF DAY 1

Games played: 4

Games obtained a first trophy in: 2

Games from before today in which additional trophies were obtained: 0

Completion percentage: 51,93% (-0,22% from the start of the event)

 

Edited July 1, 2017 by BillyHorrible

[FFHannibal]

31 minutes ago, BillyHorrible said:

BlazeRush was, thankfully, a much better experience than Mad Riders. It's a stick racer with short laps and lots of weapons.

 

Playing for an hour, I was very entertained by the game. About fifteen minutes was spent trying in vain to get connected to others though, from other sites I've gathered that a host needs a wired internet connection or players don't get through a firewall, so I may have to boost the one online trophy.

 

What's to say about the game? It's not great, but not bad either, it's silly mindless fun. It's something to play when you don't feel like playing something that demands a lot of brainpower, it's not perfect by far but it doesn't need to be. I can see myself going a few rounds in this every once in a while, perhaps even playing offline co-op. Too bad only the PS3 version was on PS+ though.

 

Stats

Playtime: about an hour

Trophies obtained: 2/21

Completion Percentage: 9% for an E rank

Score:

 

The online for BlazeRush is very screwed up. I don't remember how exactly I eventually managed to connect, but your best bet is to give your PS3 a static IP and look up which ports need to be forwarded for BlazeRush, after that it's just keep trying to connect to a match and hope you get in eventually. I think I didn't reset my settings yet, so if you want I can look them up exactly. It's such a shame as well cause I really enjoyed the game and mp could've been a lot of fun.

[Edward_FOX_86]

Hey Everyone!

I couldn't update the list yesterday cause it was a very busy day.

 

I bought Tomb Raider so I want to Include that on the event Sorry my apologies @Hemiak for the trouble!

 

So the List is the following:

 

Tomb Raider Definitive Edition Ps4 - 1st -6th July

Doom Ps4 - 6th - 12th of July

Neon Chrome Ps4 - 12th - 18th of July

Metal Gear Phantom Pain Ps4 - 18th - 24th of July

Life is Strange Ps4 - 24th - 30th of July.

 

On the last day I'll do some upgrades or a Final Review.

 

I will be recording all of my gameplay at --> https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZh8XxtQBtK34w2qYZvHwhg

 

Cheers guys and Have fun! Enjoy this Event and share your feelings with this wonderful Community

 

BTW I loved the observation @Hemiak I Guess I was Wandering the streets of Oporto maybe so I could find someone special or a wild adventure eheh

Edited July 1, 2017 by Edward_FOX_86

[DamagingRob]

Day 1- Resogun

 

Well, it's a twin-stick shooter. You pilot your ship around a rotating field, shooting different types of enemies, with a boss fight at the end of a level. Humans are trapped inside of cages, and are released when you fulfill certain conditions. Usually, killing a group of enemies before they leave the field of play. Failing to kill them in time results in the human's death. Them dying mostly just affects your score, and possible bonuses you get when picking them up and taking them to a dropoff point. Weapon upgrades, extra lives, or points seem to be the rewards.

 

Some enemies shoot at you, others will try to be kamikazes and ram your ship. Besides shooting them with your guns, you can press  to boost, or unleash a bomb/overdrive. The latter 2 are limited, and need to be used very sparingly. While boosting, you are basically invincible, and can ram into and kill loads of enemies. Good thing to have when surrounded. The drawback is, it takes a while to recharge. A bomb will completely wipe the field of enemies. And overdrive is something that's built up over time. Activating it releases a powerful laser that destroys tons of enemies in front of you. 

 

Campaign is short, consisting of only 5 levels. But the trophies should keep you busy for awhile. So far, I have only managed to beat the game on Rookie. I spent my first hour playing on Experienced, and couldn't even beat the first level... I am officially the worst Resogun player that ever lived. :/ There are 4 difficulties to choose from, too. Each one higher than Rookie. This Plat may be out of my reach.. Although, you can play it in co-op, so maybe I can get someone to carry me.  

 

You can select 3 different ships, each one better in certain categories. Or you can try and build your own. Besides that, there's not a whole lot more to say. It looks nice and sounds good. At this point, I would probably go with a , 'cause it is a fun game. I'm just not very good at it. :/ There may not be a need for any further reviews, since I've played through the entire thing already. So, I may end up starting my first bonus game tomorrow. 

 

Time played: 3 hours or so. 

Trophy progress: 22/65 for 27% and a B rank. All that DLC on the PS4 version is going to hurt... But I couldn't let @Jaguargenie suffer alone! 

Did it lower my completion? Yes.

[crimsonidol38]

Game 1, Day 1: Valkyrie Drive: Bhikkhuni (PS Vita)

 

Like some may know this game is from the creators behind the Senran Kagura-series, so it's no real surprise that this game has a high focus on Life and Hometown or to put it more bluntly: tits and asses.

Similar to Senran Kagura: Shinovi Versus and Estival Versus this game is an arena-based brawler where you have to fight your way through enemy hordes to reach the boss of a given stage. Compared to the Versus-games the battle system seems a bit more refined, though. There's the basic attacks you can perform like normal or heavy hits, dodge rolls and aerial attacks but there are also so called Phantom-moves which can be performed at the end of a combo. If you successfully perform those, your attack strength will increase by a few percent.

There's also some type of transformation called Drive. Once you activate it, the partner whom you selected at the beginning of the stage (or the forced selection during story sequences) will transform into a weapon which will increase your attack power even more. The interesting thing is that there's not only one level of the Drive but there are mutliple levels you can unlock while playing the game and which give you even more strength

 

But wait... did I just say that the partner transforms into a weapon? Yes, they transform into a weapon, although they are humans. But how? That's where the story kicks in. Valkyrie Drive Bhikkhuni plays in a universe where a virus affects girls in their teens and early twenties. This virus causes them to gain higher physical and mental strength. To analyse the cause of the virus and minimize the infection rate all afflicted girls are send to one of five artificial islands which have a special program to cure the girls. One of those islands is Bhikkhuni which is more or less designed like a holiday resort. The program to cure the disease is btw not really surprising: The girls simply have to fight each other.

 

Now back to gameplay. Not only the battle system is a bit more advanced than in the SK: Versus-games, but also the fanservice is put on a whole new level. E.g. the dressing room now plays a way more important role. Besides the standard feature of choosing the clothes and accessoires there's also some touch-mechanics which are also required to clear some other conditions. There are some robots in the story-levels which want to grope your character and measure their bust size. If the bust is big enough they will acknowledge you which seems to count like some kind of collectible. Now how to increase the bust size?

That's rather simple. Touch the girl like a hyperactive perv in the dressing room. The more you touch them, the more their affection rises. Once you hit a certain level of affection the so-called heart catching-minigame will unlock which you can activate by using some kind of item. The heart catching-minigame seems to be some kind of massage. The goal is to simply touch the hearts which appear on the screen. The more filled out they are, the better for the overall rating of minigame. There seem to be three ratings only, though. Failed, success and huge success (when you touch all hearts with perfect timing). To make this minigame a bit more "fun", the devs decided to put the chosen girl in their underwear into the background and everytime you touch a heart she starts to moan.  Actually I'm not really surprised that the german and the australian rating boards declined the game after playing this minigame.

 

 

I only played the game for about four hours so far but right now I have a rather mixed feeling. I like the fact that the game's battle system seems a bit more polished but otherwise I'm not really having fun so far as the characters feel rather boring so far. But more about in another update. 

 

[crimsonidol38]

5 hours ago, MosesRockefeller said:

Do we need to post something before starting each new game? I wasn't clear on that part from the rules. 

 

No, that's not required. It's up to you how you lay out the posts and how many you post.

[MarkusT1992]

Game #1: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Day 1)

 

 

How do I start my review of this game? After booting the game, the first thing you see is a cutsceen telling you what happened before the actual game.

After that you are in the game menu where you can start the game. You can choose different difficulty settings, ranging from easy to very hard. I chose normal for my playthrough.

You start the games as little Aloy, the main character of the game. You are an Outcast from the Nora Tribe, living by your foster father called Rost.

The game starts with you falling in a cave, you have to leave. After leaving you start your training for the Proving, a contest to become a warrior of the Nora Tribe. During this traing you get much older and rise to a young woman. That's all I will tell about the story. In my opinion you should experience it for yourselfe.

 

The game is set in an open world a few years after our time. Machine Beast roame the land and the humans have formed new tribes.

Most of the Machines are hostile against you as soon as they see you. The battly system is pretty good, although I had some problems with it at first. You have a bow for ranged attcks and a spear for melee combat. With your bow you can shoot different arrows like normal ones or fire arrows. There are more types but these are the only ones I have so far. With your spear you can use a light or a heavy attack. The heavy attack knocks your opponent down, which gives you time to deal more damage. You can avoid getting hit with a dogde roll.

Beneath these two main weapons you can use a trip wire to set traps or an explosive trap. You also have a gadget called Focus, which lets you see the paths from some Machines. That's important when you want to set up a trip wire.

 

As an open world game you have much to discover. So far most things I did were main quests but I also found two side quests. Completing quest nets you Exp. to level up and learn new skills. You gain a skill point per level up and for completed main quests. The skills range from combat to hunting. It's up to you on what you want to focus first. Better skills cost more skill points though.

 

I only just left the starting area after nearly 5 hours. The intro felt a bit long to me but it was a great experience so far. Let's see what happens next.

 

Time played: 4h 40min

Trophies: 4/56

Rating: Not quite sure.

[Mesopithecus]

Game #1. MeiQ: Labyrinth of Death

 

 

Will provide way more of an update later today (it's currently only 3.30pm) but I'm enjoying MeiQ so much that I burned down my Vita battery completely (and it had been fully charged)  So I'm currently taking a snack break whilst the Vita gains some charge.

[Hemiak]

Hem time game #1

1 hr 45 min played. 4/28 trophies. 

 

So I hit play at 12:01 and I'm treated to a very brief intro. A man/boy/girl a bow, and one arrow spinning around each other. Then the game starts. 

 

You have an isometric view of your hero, a 16 bit land to explore, and no direction at all. The controls are pretty simple. Square, triangle, and both R buttons fire your arrow. Holding them longer shoots farther and faster. Once the arrow is gone you can hold the same button to call the arrow back to you, during which you can't be moving. Circle, X, and the L buttons make you roll and sprint.

 

Rolling onto stairs makes you bounce backwards, but you can apparently roll up into vines on a wall just fine. You can roll down stairs quite fast, and it seems like you would just keep rolling infinitely if the stairs were long enough. 

 

That's basically it so far. Explore around, fight bosses, open gates. You start in some ruins, then I found a forest area, an ice area, and a lava cave area. More on the actual bosses later, though I will say that I've found and killed 13 of them so far, and I have 97 deaths. The game is pretty fun so far. Some of the bosses are harder to figure out than others, and even then some are pretty tricky to pull off once you figure them out. 

[MosesRockefeller]

Game #1: ABZU

 

ABZU is a game where you are a person/robot (I don't know which and it doesn't really matter) swimming around with sea life and enjoying the sites. There are a lot of underwater ruins, reminding me of Tomb Raider but underwater. 

 

15 minutes is enough time to get a feel for the game, but I enjoyed it so much that I kept playing until I finished the story. You can spend more time with the game and explore everything, get all collectibles, etc. But I didn't feel the need for that, and only went for a few random trophies that didn't require going out of my way. 

 

Visually the game is very nice, and even though the graphics aren't photorealistic, they do a great job of conveying a sense of wonder at the world under the water. The audio does the job, with some music that doesn't overshadow the rest of the game. Nothing earth-shattering though.

 

There are some great moments in the game. When the whales first showed up, I really enjoyed the sense of scale and beauty that the game conveyed. That cool moment made a lasting impression on me. 

 

Now we come to the gameplay. The camera combined with the game's invisible walls sometimes turning you around, can get a little frustrating. Other than that the controls are fine. I also tried Vita Remote Play, and sadly that is not ideal. The developers didn't map R2 (which you use to swim and dive) to R1 on the Vita, instead you have to hold down the read-right-top touchpad area which I always hate. Overall the controls are pretty basic and easy to use. The gameplay itself is relaxing but it's exploration-based, meaning there is always a goal in sight. There are some light puzzles but nothing difficult; they basically consist of tracing cables and chains and hitting a button. This is no Professor Layton type of game.

 

I really enjoyed the game. I won't be going back for 100% completion, but that shouldn't be seen as a knock against the game, it's just me not caring about my completion rate and having so many other games to play. I think the game was worth buying. 

 

Playtime: 2-3 hours

Trophies obtained: 7/12

Completion Percentage: 40% for a C rank

Score: 8/10

Edited July 1, 2017 by MosesRockefeller

[FFHannibal]

Game #1 - Life Is Strange

Trophies: 24 of 61 (36%)
Completion: 47% -> 46.91%
Playtime: 4 hours 29 minutes

Where do I start, where do I start. You know I think this is the hardest part of doing 30 games in 30 days. Playing them each day will be little to no trouble, but I'll need to do my very best to write a fun and witty review for all of them as well.

First off, I'm very glad I managed a solid 4 (and a half) hours with LiS. There would be nothing worse than to start off this slightly idiotic journey by underperfoming immediately. Though there's something to be said about starting off with your best performance as well because now I probably need to keep up this pace.

I've been meaning to play LiS for quite a while, but I think I was kinda scared to start playing it. The last game that was hyped quite a bit was also quite underwhelming in the end. I enjoyed Severed don't get me wrong, but I expected more out of it. Add to that that LiS is a very heavy story-based game and I need to be in the mood to play and like a game like that, and you might understand why I was a bit apprehensive.

The first 30 minutes didn't exactly prove me wrong, though as I said before I didn't want to disappoint on the very first day, so I powered through. I must admit I'm a bit spoiled on some things, but so far there are still things I'm intrigued and surprised by.

 

There's a reason I was glad I was done with school, so this game throwing me right back into it isn't really my thing. I am however very glad that the rewind power exists. A lot of the bits that would have made me put this game down can be reversed, so that's a definite plus.

I wasn't, and still am not, quite taken with Max. She's a bit bland and a little too shy for my taste, but she's also probably the closest to how I was in school (except for the time powers of course), so that might be a contributing factor. Chloe is the only character so far I actually decently like, but a few of the others are growing on me.

I decided to play through without actively looking to take the optional pictures. In the end I decided I'd go back in collectible mode after every chapter and get the photos I missed (it's only the first game of this crazy month, didn't want to take down my completion rate too much). I managed to get 4 of the optional photos in Episode 1 and I got 3 optional photos in Episode 2 on the first try.

Now the story in itself is a bit crazy and there's a few things in there I honestly didn't expect (the gun, the drugs,...). Sometimes it's a bit too over the top for me, but then again there's something supernatural going on as well, so who am I to tell it's too much.

I played and completed the first 2 episodes and decided to stop after that. Maybe stopping after Episode 2 isn't a very good idea because the almost last scene is quite heavy, but I will be definitely coming back to this game (something tells me it's only going to get worse though).

Some fun facts:

• In Episode 1 I made all the popular choices except 2. Let's just say that my animals get to live, but my plants will sadly die.
• In Episode 2 I again made all the popular choices except 1 this time. It seems I'm a bit friendlier than the average player.

Likelihood of me going back and getting the platinum: 100%

[Lars]

Game #1: Far Cry Primal

I've played the game for about 1 hour now and will play it more tomorrow. Graphics are good and so far gameplay is good although melee combat feels a bit clunky. In the beginning you are dropped into a fight with a mammoth and a cutscene plays. You fell into a small valley where you learn the basics of the game. When you get out there you meet someone and the story starts and you are immediately dropped into the open world. 

 

The map is blurred out and you don't have to find high points to discover stuff but the map unfolds for you when you walk into new parts of it. There is a lot to do in the world because i have hardly started the game and already there are 4 side activities on the map. The world looks very nice and alive. I am still in the beginning where the mechanics are explained so i can't say much about that yet.

 

Like said, in general i like it so far but there are two big issues for me. At first it just doesn't feel like a Far Cry game to me. Far Cry 3 and 4 were both filled with crazy action, explosions and a strong main antagonist (could be in here as well, haven't met him yet). I think Ubisoft limited themselves with the prehistoric theme, this of course limits the weapons but also movement options because you can't have vehicles. I think the only reason they've done this is to make animals a bigger feature in the game because it wasn't in previous ones imo. When you had the hides you needed animals became more annoying instead of useful. I think this game would have been stronger as a new IP because then it would have released with other expectations. But i can't judge to much yet, haven't played enough but i think also the combat could get rather boring because there are only a couple of weapons to use.

 

Another big issue for me is that, although it could be considered a strong point, all the characters speak in a native language from that age. This of course makes the game more realistic and gives you as the player a better feeling of when it is taking part. My big issue with it is that it is impossible to understand, so in a cutscene you have to have subtitles. If you miss something you don't know what they're talking about because with just audio you don't understand a word. Also in the open world it is annoying, when the leader of some enemies shouts something it would be nice for the player to understand that, assuming that my ingame character knows what he's saying because he speaks the same language. 

In general this option is more annoying then good because you have to focus on the subtitles to be able to follow what is being said, so focussing on the cutscene itself is more difficult and therefore getting in the story isn't happening for me now. Tbh i couldn't care less about the tribe i'm fighting for now.

 

I'll keep you guys updated about the game and what i think about it when i get to the later stages

[Metal Slime King]

Initial impressions

Life is Strange - I played through the first episode. Does anyone else remember Remember Me? The second game (?) by DONTNOD for Square and the second game with a female protagonist who can rewind time. It's like Remember Me if they extended the time manipulation sequences and replaced the combat with taking pictures of stuff and ignoring text messages from your mom. It may sound like I'm being negative towards Life is Strange but I'm just having a little fun, this is a very polished game. The audio and video are well done, the game creates a compelling atmosphere in which it tells it's story. Definitely a game I would cite in an argument over whether games can be art. This is a narrative driven game which is a genre I haven't played before and only picked up because it was free on PS+ but so far I'm glad I tried it. Someone in the know help me out, is this game a "visual novel" or does it and the Tell Tale games I assume are similar belong to a different genre classification?

 

Batman Arkham Origins Blackgate - I played for about an hour. Blackgate is a 2.5D exploration type game in the same visual style as the Arkham games where different areas are strung together by navigation mechanisms like grates and grapple vantage points. My first impression was 'awkward', the way the game transitions between areas, the way the camera is nailed down. I had an armed thug off screen who could see me before I could've possibly seen him. How groups of enemies in a 3D area rearrange themselves to fight you on a 2D plane, that's just kind of funny. Particularly how the 2D map communicates how you get around (I read there's an enhanced version for PS3 with a better map system). The danger of trying new things is that the rules for what does and doesn't work haven't been hashed out yet. I'll have to give this one more time and see if it doesn't grow on me.

[MarkusT1992]

5 minutes ago, mking_63 said:

Initial impressions

Life is Strange - I played through the first episode. Does anyone else remember Remember Me? The second game (?) by DONTNOD for Square and the second game with a female protagonist who can rewind time. It's like Remember Me if they extended the time manipulation sequences and replaced the combat with taking pictures of stuff and ignoring text messages from your mom. It may sound like I'm being negative towards Life is Strange but I'm just having a little fun, this is a very polished game. The audio and video are well done, the game creates a compelling atmosphere in which it tells it's story. Definitely a game I would cite in an argument over whether games can be art. This is a narrative driven game which is a genre I haven't played before and only picked up because it was free on PS+ but so far I'm glad I tried it. Someone in the know help me out, is this game a "visual novel" or does it and the Tell Tale games I assume are similar belong to a different genre classification?

 

They are Adventures. You don't walk in Visual Novels. VNs are mostly sceenes with a lot of text and sometimes you have to do something like in Ace Attorney.

[DamagingRob]

Mini Resogun update: Made it through the game with all 3 ships, and captured every human in each level. Tried Experienced difficulty again, and did a lot better. Made it through Level 1 without dying, even. I thought, "Huh, maybe that helped me get better?" Then came Level 2... Back to getting Game Overs. :/ 

 

So, after 3-4 runs through the game, I think I'm gonna call it quits on this one for now. Might come back to it, might not. 

[voodoo_eyes]

29 minutes ago, mking_63 said:

Initial impressions

Life is Strange - I played through the first episode. Does anyone else remember Remember Me? The second game (?) by DONTNOD for Square and the second game with a female protagonist who can rewind time. It's like Remember Me if they extended the time manipulation sequences and replaced the combat with taking pictures of stuff and ignoring text messages from your mom. It may sound like I'm being negative towards Life is Strange but I'm just having a little fun, this is a very polished game. The audio and video are well done, the game creates a compelling atmosphere in which it tells it's story. Definitely a game I would cite in an argument over whether games can be art. This is a narrative driven game which is a genre I haven't played before and only picked up because it was free on PS+ but so far I'm glad I tried it. Someone in the know help me out, is this game a "visual novel" or does it and the Tell Tale games I assume are similar belong to a different genre classification?

 

It's neither. It's an interactive drama, and has more similarities with games like Heavy Rain and Beyond Two Souls .

[JoaoQuique]

Game Nº 1 [F1 2015] - First Day Report

 

 

For those who already played F1 games on PS3, maybe they can feel a bit strange about this game - its menus are considerably different from PS3's F1 games, and there aren't so much blur while racing (about "blurriness" this game is more like Gran Turismo than F1 games on PS3). However, I have not seen any F1 game more beautiful than this one... About gameplay, maybe this game can be considered more "beginner friendly" than F1 2014, per example, because of a "very easy" settable difficulty, the possibility of setting Championship Races with 3 laps, etc.

 

Actually, I've missed Carrer mode - this game have Championship Season Mode instead, where you can choose any actual F1 driver. Since we can set 3 laps each race, an entire season could be completed in a single day (there are 19 races in both seasons avaliable). The most interesting thing about this game is that you can set the season on options (drivers and tracks avaliable are based on the "activated season") - actually, you must set specific seasons for some trophies (example: "Clean Sweep" requires a valid time on each track on Time Trial, but while Hockenheim (Germany) is avaliable only on 2014 Season, Hermanos Rodriguez (Mexico) is avaliable just on 2015 Season...).

 

Comparing to F1 2014, this game have less game modes (for instance, Season Challenge mode was also removed), but it is an awesome racing game anymay, and a must to F1 fans.

 

Tomorrow plans: Probably I will try some long-legged sessions (Quick Races with length of 25%) and/or Pro Mode (a mode when you must drive racing weekends with 100% length, without HUDs and any assists and versus AI with max difficulty). Since probably I will go out tomorrow, I will not spend too much time into this game like today...

 

Playtime: Almost 5 hours

 

Trophies obtained: 22 from 46 (Completion at 55% - Rank A)

 

Personal Completion: from 71,94% to 71,90% (I had not expected too many progress on F1 2015 in a single day...)

 

 

 

Final report will be post on Monday morning (local time) - probably 40 hours after...

[Mesopithecus]

Game #1.  MeiQ: Labyrinth of Death

 

 

Actually having a hard time putting this game down to come and write a little summary on the first day

 

MeiQ is a dungeon crawler from Compile Hearts and Idea Factory.  You play as a Machina Mage named Estra (voiced by the same actress who does Compa in the Nep games) She and the other Machina Mages (Flare, Maki, Connie and Setia) are on a quest to conquer 4 towers, so they can wind back up the celestial screw which rotates the stars.

 

The dungeons are pretty large and expansive, so I've been spending a lot of time searching around and trying to find as many items as I can.  I'm currently on the third dungeon and making great progress.  I've spent some time leveling up my characters (as there are trophies for getting characters to level 99 and level 999)  The battle system is an enjoyable turn based one where you use the characters and their robotic guardians - there is a lot of customization you can do to both your characters and the guardians to optimize their battle experience.

 

The characters are pretty good (apart from Connie, she sounds like a whiny child) and the story/gameplay are both easy to get into.  I was given the option of starting the game on Normal and Hard, I went with Normal just to get a feel for the game and enjoy the story.  There are trophies however for finishing the game on Hard and then two more difficulties afterwards.

 

I'm enjoying my experience a lot though so I imagine I'm going to have a hard time putting this down once the 3 days are up.

 

Playtime:  Probably somewhere around 8 hours

Trophies Obtained: 3/37 (4%)

Completion Currently: 92.28%

 

[SyIaris]

July 1st-5th

Life is Strange - episode 1

1h40m

9/61 (13%)

-0.4% overall

 

And so begins the only game I'm likely to finish this month. Didn't catch that the episode downloads were all separate, whoops. Think I'm going to tackle it at an episode a day, unless it really catches me later on. A friend wants to play Unity, too, so I may run that alongside it...

 

If you're familiar with Heavy Rain or Telltales games, you've played this style on a smaller scale. The areas you can explore are quite a bit bigger, and you can interact with many objects and people in each of them. The scenes and people -aside from the strange hair visual choice- are beautifully done, and the music and voice acting seem to be done just as well.

The writing is not. At least, it certainly doesn't seem to be. If I could turn off subtitles and mute the game and not kill the point of it being story-driven, I would. Your character, Max, is a quiet, shy girl... who for some reason casually swears in every other sentence.

 

So far, I've done my best to poke around and trigger as few conversations as possible. Managed all but two of the photos in the first episode and missed nearly all of the optional objectives, so... yay? Made the popular choice on all of the major ones.

Managed to save a bird thanks to my terrible sense of direction, though!

 

I kind of hate everyone, but if this is as emotional as I've heard, that's not a bad thing.

Edited July 2, 2017 by SyIaris