Cassylvania's Miserable Little Pile of Platinums

[Cassylvania]

3 minutes ago, Rally-Vincent--- said:

Eh, I don't know. There are so many stupid games, but you wouldn't know until you did some research on it. It'd take much more time to maintain that list in a way that it'd be useful than putting the wants/maybes on a list - even more so because it would take me a year to play the few games that are on the list. I mean: 144 "games played" in ten years since trophies were introduced. I have 22 games on my watchlist plus everything that is already on my backlog, that's closer to two years than one.

 

That's kinda what I mean, though. I've probably watched hundreds of reviews over the years of games that I might want to play. There are times where I'll watch a review, be like, "Yeah, I'm never going to touch that," and then forget about it. But that's the problem. When I'm looking for another game to play, I might come across it again and not remember what my thoughts were, or even if I watched that short review. In those cases, it'd be nice if I could just erase some games forever.

 

But obviously it depends on how many games you play or plan to play. If you're only playing games you absolutely know you want to play, it's not a big deal. For me, researching games is part of the gaming experience, even if I never decide to play them. It's like fishing. If I catch a fish and don't want it, throwing it back with the rest of the fish just means I might catch it again. I'd rather throw the fish on dry land so I can eliminate that possibility for good.

 

Yeah. Let's go with that analogy. That's not psychotic at all.

[KingCuervo88]

On 6/9/2020 at 1:38 PM, Cassylvania said:

 

Well, welcome to the pile! That...really sounds dirty, the more I think about it.

You have so many games. How was the Saints Row 3 remake? And Maneater? I don't think I'll have time to get to them this year, but I scribbled them both down as games to keep an eye on. You also have a ton of POWGI and (my personal favorite) Picross games. I'm not sure I'll get around to Pic-a-Pix Color 2 or Block-a-Pix (or whatever else they come up with), but I'm glad to see you avoided Phil's Epic Adventure. That game has one of the most misleading platinum rarities I've ever seen. Almost 60% of owners have it, but I swear it's like a 100+ hour platinum. That's why I kinda wish guides had two times: one for using a walkthrough and one for actually playing the game.

Saints Row looked really good, crashed a few times but a good remaster. Maneater gets repetitive but since it is a shorter game it doesn’t get too bad. Both I’d wait for a sale on to grab. Of course sales are why my backlog is so full

[Darling Baphomet]

9 hours ago, KingCuervo88 said:

Saints Row looked really good, crashed a few times but a good remaster. Maneater gets repetitive but since it is a shorter game it doesn’t get too bad. Both I’d wait for a sale on to grab. Of course sales are why my backlog is so full

 

I'm glad to hear the remaster is performing well. I was surprised when I heard Saints Row wasn't just a PS4 port - nice to see companies putting in the effort. I'll definitely get it since the last time I played it was when I was a kid, and I enjoyed it. It'd be nice to have its platinum alongside 3 and Gat out of Hell. Wish they'd remaster the second - I never fully finished it. Probably wait for it and Maneater to hit 20$ again, though.

 

10 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

\But obviously it depends on how many games you play or plan to play. If you're only playing games you absolutely know you want to play, it's not a big deal. For me, researching games is part of the gaming experience, even if I never decide to play them. It's like fishing. If I catch a fish and don't want it, throwing it back with the rest of the fish just means I might catch it again. I'd rather throw the fish on dry land so I can eliminate that possibility for good.

 

Yeah. Let's go with that analogy. That's not psychotic at all.

 

Hmm. You okay there?

 

But yeah, I try to research games a fair bit before I play them, although there's only so much research can do - for instance, I almost didn't buy The Swords of Ditto because of all the mediocre reviews despite the art style and music captivating me. At the end I finally said, "fuck it, it's only 7.50" and... well, it ended up being one of the best indie games I've played.

[Rally-Vincent---]

On 10.6.2020 at 9:58 PM, Cassylvania said:

But obviously it depends on how many games you play or plan to play. If you're only playing games you absolutely know you want to play, it's not a big deal. For me, researching games is part of the gaming experience, even if I never decide to play them. It's like fishing. If I catch a fish and don't want it, throwing it back with the rest of the fish just means I might catch it again. I'd rather throw the fish on dry land so I can eliminate that possibility for good.

 

I simply don't have the time to play games that I would only consider if my want-to-play stack is finished. I don't even manage to watch the DVDs that I have lying around because the PS4 hogs so much time. Well, that and because I watch Let's plays of the games I don't play, yet am interested in, whilst grinding stuff.

[Rune_Crys]

Since everyone is harping about games they hate, I want to bring up a game I just enjoyed: Shantae and the Seven Sirens. It's a really fun Metroidvania and the animated cutscenes with Shantae were fun. Just be wary if you want to platinum it: You have to do a no health upgrade run(but you need to collect all of the health upgrades anyways) and one trophy requires you to do a shooting gallery with no missed shots, which I had trouble doing for a while.

 

Anyways, did any of you catch the PS5 Reveal Event? I am stoked Insomniac still holds onto Ratchet and Clank and are making another game for the duo for this awesome new system. I've already set aside some money in my bank account for it when it comes out.

[Cassylvania]

On 6/11/2020 at 3:05 AM, Darling Baphomet said:

But yeah, I try to research games a fair bit before I play them, although there's only so much research can do - for instance, I almost didn't buy The Swords of Ditto because of all the mediocre reviews despite the art style and music captivating me. At the end I finally said, "fuck it, it's only 7.50" and... well, it ended up being one of the best indie games I've played.

 

I really liked the art style in that game too. I can understand some of the mediocre reviews, but I heard they made some pretty significant updates since release. I wish they had more Zelda-like games on the PS4.

 

2 hours ago, Rune_Crys said:

Since everyone is harping about games they hate, I want to bring up a game I just enjoyed: Shantae and the Seven Sirens. It's a really fun Metroidvania and the animated cutscenes with Shantae were fun. Just be wary if you want to platinum it: You have to do a no health upgrade run(but you need to collect all of the health upgrades anyways) and one trophy requires you to do a shooting gallery with no missed shots, which I had trouble doing for a while.

 

Anyways, did any of you catch the PS5 Reveal Event? I am stoked Insomniac still holds onto Ratchet and Clank and are making another game for the duo for this awesome new system. I've already set aside some money in my bank account for it when it comes out.

 

Yeah, I watched most of it. Still haven't played a Ratchet & Clank game. I hadn't really been keeping up with the news prior to the event, so some of the reveals were surprises to me. Games I'm excited about include the Demon's Souls remake (duh), RE8, Kena, Oddworld (more about this series later), HFW, and I guess Spider-Miles. I think Resi 8 had the best trailer. Bugsnax had the worst. What the hell was that? The others, I'm not sure about. I would need to see a little more about the gameplay. Sackboy and Deathloop could be fun.

 

Since Demon's Souls is a remake and not a remaster, I hope they improve the boss fights dramatically. I think it would be hilarious if they gave the bosses new moves to punish players for trying popular cheese tactics. For example, if you hide behind a pillar when fighting Flamelurker, he rips the pillar out of the floor and smashes it over your head. If you try to shoot the first Maneater from the fog door, the other swoops down and throws you through the door. And the Dragon God must, MUST be an actual fight. I would love if you still had to use the harpoons to bring him to the ground, but then they could add a whole second phase where you have to face him head-on.

 

I will be very sad if it has a shared trophy list.

 

I actually like the PS5's design, but I hope it can be laid horizontally, as that's the only way it'll fit on my TV stand. Otherwise, I might just put it in the closet with my PS4. Not sure why there's a disc-less version. That just seems like a bad investment for BC. I wonder if we're still looking at a holiday 2020 release.

 

Six days until the release of TLOU2. The early reviews are actually looking really good. I'm going to try to platinum TLOU before it comes out. My only real concern right now is the winter section on Grounded Mode and the fact that I'm probably going to be short on gear upgrades if I'm trying to do everything in two playthroughs. I assume I can use chapter select when I finish NG+ to get more?

[Darling Baphomet]

53 minutes ago, Cassylvania said:

I really liked the art style in that game too. I can understand some of the mediocre reviews, but I heard they made some pretty significant updates since release. I wish they had more Zelda-like games on the PS4.

 

Yeah, they added a bunch of new items AFAIK and revamped it. Some of the new items are pretty great, like a Necronomicon to summon hordes of zombies and shoes that you can use to run through everything (including enemies.) They also made it much less permadeath-y and added curses every run.

 

But yeah, it was a fun game. Probably the first Zelda-like game I've played to conclusion, actually.

 

54 minutes ago, Cassylvania said:

Yeah, I watched most of it. Still haven't played a Ratchet & Clank game. I hadn't really been keeping up with the news prior to the event, so some of the reveals were surprises to me. Games I'm excited about include the Demon's Souls remake (duh), RE8, Kena, Oddworld (more about this series later), HFW, and I guess Spider-Miles. I think Resi 8 had the best trailer. Bugsnax had the worst. What the hell was that? The others, I'm not sure about. I would need to see a little more about the gameplay. Sackboy and Deathloop could be fun.

 

Why haven't you tried R&C yet? It's a pretty good series, and the remake on PS4 is fun and a pretty easy platinum (except for one trophy for completing a race with a perfect time, which is terrible.)

 

I'm pretty excited for the new R&C - I wish they'd do more than one a generation, or at least port the PS3 games to PS5. The New Horizon Zero Dawn looks fantastic too. I can't wait to see how gorgeous Guerilla will manage to make it with the PS5's power.

[Rune_Crys]

7 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

Kena

 

I saw the event and I think Kena is going to be great, reminds me of Gremlins and The Dark Crystal combined. Oh, and Kena does a Fu-So-Rah that turns enemies into trees. I never played Pikmin in my life but this game feels awesome. Might look into it.

 

Other than that, Sackboy's Big Adventure(I thought LittleBigPlanet was dead, sign me up!) and the new R&C, nothing else was interesting to me, though the trailers were all pretty cool in some way. Ghostwire was creepy as all f'k, considering it's based on Japanese mythology. I am hoping that Athia isn't the only game Square-Enix is working on as I would love to see a classic Dragon Quest or FFXVI announced for 2021.

 

I hope there are more announced titles for 2021, since I know the PS5 will be coming out at least on Christmas as most of the trailers said Holiday 2020. Until then, we always have Paper Mario and the Origami King - yeah, they threw up a new trailer for that.

[Sword]

Definitely sounds like the PS5 is still on track for Holiday 2020. Going to be one hell of an expensive Holiday Season this year but you know what, new consoles only come around once every 6-8 years or so. This will be my first console that I've bought at launch cause now I'm out of college.  I don't mind putting down 1k+ for the console and a bunch of games for the holiday season and being a beta tester. Just means I can run the console to the ground and replace it with the Pro-Ultimate-Elite version before the PS6. No problem at all. Now the real question will be, how many PS4 games can it play and can the disc version of the PS5 play PS4 discs? I really hope so, then I can completely get rid of the PS4 forever.

 

I think my favorite announced game was Demon's Soul's. Huge fan of the Souls series and never played the original. One that surprised me was that Solar Ash one I think? Looks cool, like an adventure game, but we need some more info on that one. The games I would never buy are the racing or NBA game, just because I'm totally not into those genres. 

 

Also earlier I saw talk of reviews and stuff for games. I must be such an outlier, because I don't read or watch reviews of games ever. I just kinda buy and play through. I think there's only been one game in my entire life that I've actually quit 5 minutes in, which was Enchanted Arms on the Gamecube or Xbox I can't remember which. Every other game I've completed. Never returned a game or sold-back a game. Either I'm extremely lucky or just so mellow about it that I just accept whatever is thrown at me. Gotta knock on wood 4 times after that, no jinxes here.

 

1 hour ago, Rune_Crys said:

I am hoping that Athia isn't the only game Square-Enix is working on as I would love to see a classic Dragon Quest or FFXVI announced for 2021.

Same here. Though I really hope whatever they do, they take their time with the next game and put out quality. No more of this FFXV type crap. FF7R was such a breath of fresh air in that regard for new games coming from Squeenix. 

 

 

 

Edited June 14, 2020 by Sword

[Eagle]

On 13/06/2020 at 11:49 PM, Sword said:

Also, earlier, I saw talk of reviews and stuff for games. I must be such an outlier, because I don't read or watch reviews of games ever. I just kinda buy and play through them. I think there's only been one game in my entire life that I've actually quit 5 minutes in, which was Enchanted Arms on the Gamecube or Xbox (I can't remember which). Every other game, I've completed. Never returned or flipped a game. Either I'm extremely lucky or just so mellow about it that I just accept whatever is thrown at me. Gotta knock on wood 4 times after that, no jinxes here.

 

I also don't read or watch a lot of reviews, because the person reviewing it has an opinion that is different than mine, so basing myself off of what they said would be illogical (at maximum, I'll see a no-commentary gameplay to see what the game is like if I really don't have the slightest idea). I'm also not very picky and have a broad idea of what games I will most certainly dislike, which helps.

 

About the PS5 event, I'm not really hyped for any games, because I haven't played (and neither do I own) the previous entries of any of these series. But I still pretend to.

Edited July 4, 2021 by Eagle

[Sword]

2 minutes ago, BRKs_Eagle said:

 

I also don't read or watch a lot of reviews, because the person reviewing it has an opinion that is different than mine, so basing myself off of what they said would be illogical (at maximum, I'll see a no-commentary gameplay to see what the game is like if I really don't have the slightest idea).  I'm also not very picky and have a broad idea of what games I will most certainly dislike, which helps.

Same here. If I can't judge a game I'll watch a no-commentary run for 5-10 minutes and skip around to see what the game looks and plays like. If it's a story game I'll skip to a random video in the playthrough series and watch how the characters interact here or there. Usually does the trick. But I agree basing an opinion on someone else's is dicey at best because everyone has such different experiences and tastes with games.

 

Not that it's bad if people want to listen to reviews or such, all the more power to you. I think maybe what helps me is that even if a game is bad I'll still trophy hunt any game so... I'll just force myself to get through it.

[Jelly Soup]

More and more I find myself returning to how I was when I was a kid. Some footage, a few images or just a well written opening area walkthrough tells me more about if a particular game is for me or not than a handful of paragraphs. But it also depends on what the paragraphs are about. An out and out review isn't something I'll read. An after game impression of the experience, however, can be pretty interesting to read.

[Rally-Vincent---]

I don't see the problem with reading reviews. If it's a game with a story, what does it matter what the reviewer thinks of it? It'll be just like with any story - like it, hate it, be indifferent - and you'll only know while experiencing it. I take what i need from a review: are there bugs, how does it play, what are the mechanics? I have played games long enough to judge from a review if I'm going to buy a game or not.

[Darling Baphomet]

19 hours ago, Rally-Vincent--- said:

I don't see the problem with reading reviews. If it's a game with a story, what does it matter what the reviewer thinks of it? It'll be just like with any story - like it, hate it, be indifferent - and you'll only know while experiencing it. I take what i need from a review: are there bugs, how does it play, what are the mechanics? I have played games long enough to judge from a review if I'm going to buy a game or not.

 

Eh, there are some games that just have terrible stories. If the consensus is that the story is terrible, then, chances are that you won't enjoy it either. They can highlight specific issues - inconclusive endings, shallow characters, the story being rushed, and so on and so forth.

[Cassylvania]

On 6/13/2020 at 3:12 PM, Darling Baphomet said:

Why haven't you tried R&C yet? It's a pretty good series, and the remake on PS4 is fun and a pretty easy platinum (except for one trophy for completing a race with a perfect time, which is terrible.)

 

Just haven't gotten to it yet. It does that thing where it keeps coming out with new games, making it harder and harder to get to without dedicating a lot of time.

 

As for the topic at hand... I trust reviews more than trailers because at least some reviewers will try to be somewhat objective. You're not going to see a trailer that announces all the bugs, gameplay issues, or story flaws. At the same time, you have to recognize reviews are often just opinions. Somebody mentioned that Joseph Anderson hated Darkest Dungeon (actually, that was @Arcesius in his thread). I watched that video not too long ago, and while I obviously disagree with his overall take (just like I did with A Plague Tale), he brought up some valid points that I hadn't considered. That's what's nice about reviews. Sometimes it's hard to step back and take a critical look at why a game might be good or bad. I always use this as an example, but for the longest time, I thought Skyrim was a bad game. It wasn't until I compared it to Dark Souls that I realized why that experience was lacking, even though I was having fun. And while I'm probably in the minority in thinking that, I have found others who feel the same way. Without that critical analysis, you would think that Skyrim is the perfect game, based on all the hype and professional review scores it received.

 

I haven't found an independent reviewer who shares my exact views on everything. I've mentioned a few of them before, but most of the bigger names are into online shooters and the AAA market...which is understandable, but isn't really my jam. I do kinda agree with @Jelly Soup in that I can probably tell if I'm going to like a game or not from about five minutes of unedited footage, but sometimes watching reviews helps me to decide my next time. Other times, I know I'm never going to play something, but I'll still watch a review on it so I can be informed. I do that with Worth a Buy a lot. I would say about 95% of his reviews are games that I would never even consider playing or even have access to (since many of them are PC only). But his reviews make me laugh. It doesn't really bother me that he shits on games I like or favors a genre that I despise, but he points out problems that are very prevalent in the video game industry. He's also the reason I decided to play Kingdom Come: Deliverance, even though I had heard so many mixed things about the game. I don't know that I would've truly been able to judge that game based on a short review. And even though I typed up a few paragraphs on my thoughts on the game after I had finished, I don't know that I really added anything or contributed anything meaningful to somebody still on the fence.

 

I find it harder to judge AAA games based on reviews. I don't know if major reviewers are paid to promote certain games (I do know a little about sponsorships, though), but any reviewer has to be concerned about alienating his or her audience. I think one of the reasons AVGN has been so successful is that he shits on games that nobody is going to want to defend (and are often so old now that it's like, "Who cares?"). If he started going after newer games, some of his fans might get upset.

 

I've mostly been talking about YouTubers here because that's how I get most of my gaming news, but you can often tell when a review (for a popular game anyway) is going to be negative based on the like/dislike ratio. I'll be very interested in checking out the reviews for TLOU2 this week.

 

On a completely unrelated note...

 

Platinum #220 - The Last of Us Remastered

 

Exactly seven years since the worldwide release of TLOU, I have the platinum. Again. Although this was my first time playing through on Grounded Mode and Left Behind. Grounded was...not nearly as bad as Brutal on Uncharted, but I wasn't able to get enough gears to upgrade all my weapons on two playthroughs. My third playthrough was on Easy and I had to get all the way to Tommy's Dam to get the last trophy. Didn't take too long, but yeah... I wish I had just done my first playthrough on Easy. Probably would've found enough gears that way.

 

I'm not one of those people who think this is the best game ever made, and I actually prefer the Uncharted series because I am freakin' sick of post-apocalyptic stories, but it's good enough for what it is. I'd still give it an 8/10 and recommend it to anybody who hasn't played it already, which basically eliminates everybody on these forums. Can any of you honestly say you've never played TLOU before? I really want to know. If you haven't, why not? Is it in your backlog, is it that you're not a fan of MP trophies, or do you share my views when it comes to zombie games?

 

And if you have played it, are you picking up the sequel this week?

[Rally-Vincent---]

7 hours ago, Darling Baphomet said:

 

Eh, there are some games that just have terrible stories. If the consensus is that the story is terrible, then, chances are that you won't enjoy it either. They can highlight specific issues - inconclusive endings, shallow characters, the story being rushed, and so on and so forth.

 

I have bought Nier: Automata because so many players said that it had a great story. I didn't enjoy the story at all, and although I am the most clueless person when it comes to story twists, I saw that one coming from a mile. I really enjoyed Mass Effect: Andromeda, despite all its flaws, tech-wise and story-wise. So unless the reviews say that there are holes in the story - like being in X and in the next scene you are in Y without any explanation - I will judge the story myself if I am interested in the setting. I'll also judge on my own if a character is shallow or not.

 

What I'm trying to say is: If the premise hits my spider senses, I'll play it unless the reviews tell me the game is broken or hardly playable. The reviewers' opinions on the story or the rating usually don't influence my decision.

 

 

1 hour ago, Cassylvania said:

 

And if you have played it, are you picking up the sequel this week?

 

I'll definitely get it. I am so curious to see what happened to Ellie and Joel. I managed to avoid any leak. I'll go into a shop right after work, and by pure coincidence, I have the following two weeks off. Perfect timing.

[Darling Baphomet]

1 hour ago, Rally-Vincent--- said:

 

I have bought Nier: Automata because so many players said that it had a great story. I didn't enjoy the story at all, and although I am the most clueless person when it comes to story twists, I saw that one coming from a mile. I really enjoyed Mass Effect: Andromeda, despite all its flaws, tech-wise and story-wise. So unless the reviews say that there are holes in the story - like being in X and in the next scene you are in Y without any explanation - I will judge the story myself if I am interested in the setting. I'll also judge on my own if a character is shallow or not.

 

What I'm trying to say is: If the premise hits my spider senses, I'll play it unless the reviews tell me the game is broken or hardly playable. The reviewers' opinions on the story or the rating usually don't influence my decision.

 

Yeah, that's definitely fair. I enjoyed Mass Effect Andromeda too (I seem to have a thing for underdog games), although I could see where the flaws in its story came into play. I'm really excited for the Mass Effect trilogy getting rereleased - if it's 40$ I might buy it at launch.

 

3 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

I haven't found an independent reviewer who shares my exact views on everything. I've mentioned a few of them before, but most of the bigger names are into online shooters and the AAA market...which is understandable, but isn't really my jam. I do kinda agree with @Jelly Soup in that I can probably tell if I'm going to like a game or not from about five minutes of unedited footage, but sometimes watching reviews helps me to decide my next time. Other times, I know I'm never going to play something, but I'll still watch a review on it so I can be informed. I do that with Worth a Buy a lot. I would say about 95% of his reviews are games that I would never even consider playing or even have access to (since many of them are PC only). But his reviews make me laugh. It doesn't really bother me that he shits on games I like or favors a genre that I despise, but he points out problems that are very prevalent in the video game industry. He's also the reason I decided to play Kingdom Come: Deliverance, even though I had heard so many mixed things about the game. I don't know that I would've truly been able to judge that game based on a short review. And even though I typed up a few paragraphs on my thoughts on the game after I had finished, I don't know that I really added anything or contributed anything meaningful to somebody still on the fence.

 

Yeah, that's super thing - I posted here before about how I almost didn't buy Swords of Ditto because of the reviews but the footage captivated me. Gameplay footage is always a good way to see the tone and how the game plays for yourself. I don't generally trust individual reviewers that much - I go to Metacritic for my aggregates, and check out gameplay, but that's about it. The only "reviewer" I actually watch is Dunkey, but honestly, he has terrible takes delivered hilariously.

[BadRep24]

On 6/8/2020 at 6:22 PM, Cassylvania said:

 

I'll move it slightly higher up on my backlog list. I've been organizing the games I own by the likelihood of me playing them. If it's a game I know I'm going to play soon, I download it. If it's a game I might play soon, I download it but put it in a separate folder. If it's a game I'm probably never going to play, I hide it from my PS library. That leaves me with about 70 games that I own but probably won't be playing any time soon. I'm thinking maybe this fall I'll get to Regalia (and Valthirian Arc, which I always think is the same game).

 

Alright. Was hoping to finish this yesterday, but the last scenario took longer than expected...

 

Platinum #219 - Plague, Inc.: Evolved

F-

See me after class.

 

20 hours to platinum, my ass.

 

First, what is it? Wikipedia says Plague Inc is a strategy-simulation game. I disagree. Plague Inc is a simulation model. You "play" as a pathogen, with a single goal in mind: to destroy the entire human race. To do this, you pick a type of disease, your starting country, and your abilities, transmissions, and symptoms, which you purchase using DNA points that you collect from infecting other countries. You then wait and see how the model plays out. There are basically two stages to this. In the first stage, you are trying to infect as many people as possible without being detected. In the second stage, the humans have detected you, so it's a race against the clock to wipe them out before they develop a cure. The only real gameplay is figuring out the best way to distribute your DNA points. Should you focus on non-lethal symptoms so you can remain under the radar, or do you want to give your little bacteria a better chance at surviving in cold environments? What's neat is that every disease has unique properties (similar to how they behave in the real world), and there are lots of scenarios that incorporate new mechanics or throw a spin on existing ones. This means there's no one universal solution, like Foul Play’s circle + square + square + square + square + square combo.

 

As you might expect, RNG is a major factor here. Almost every event, from where the Olympics are held to how quickly your disease spreads to remote islands, is based on luck. It reminds me of Bridge Constructor. If you've never played that before, it's basically a game where you're tasked with creating a bridge for traffic to cross. If the bridge holds up, you win. If not, it's back to the drawing board. My problem with that game, if you recall, is that sometimes you end up running the same model multiple times and achieving different results. That means if your bridge is CLOSE to holding up during the first run, it's probably worth trying it again because you may have stumbled upon a solution that only works some of the time. Imagine that in real life. You're an engineer and your boss is screaming at you that a shipment of Popeye's just went careening down the side of a canyon thanks to your shoddy workmanship, and all you can say is, "But sir, it worked 33.3% of the time in the simulation model!" Your ass would be fired. In Bridge Constructor, that is bullshit because everything is based on physics. You should not get different results under the same conditions. In Plague Inc, it makes sense because the human element can account for some of the randomness. Humans may intentionally or inadvertently do things that make your life as a disease harder (such as closing ports into a country or eliminating mosquitoes) or easier (such as hosting the Olympics in a country you're about to infect or not washing their hands). That doesn't make it any less frustrating to play, but at least it's more forgivable.

 

There's a meme going around that Greenland is the safest place to be during a pandemic because it doesn't share a land border with any other country and there is only one point of entry. If that port closes before you can infect Greenland, it's basically game over. Even if you're using a guide, expect to run some models with the same parameters SEVERAL times before you win. When you lose, it's usually because you didn't infect one of the island countries quickly enough.

 

Finally, some of the trophies are ridiculously obscure. I don't know how anybody even figured out how to trigger them. For example, the trophy Film Fanatic requires you to "recreate the setting of the Dawn of the Planet of the Apes film." What does that even mean? It turns out you need to start in the United States as the Simiam Flu (I figured that much out on my own) and lose, but only once the global human population has dropped below five million. That's not an easy thing to manipulate either. Maybe it would have helped if I had actually watched the movie, but I think I prefer better trophy descriptions.

 

I should also point out that some of the guides out there are incomplete. There are more scenarios now, and the DLC (which is free) is required for the platinum. I'd actually argue that the new scenarios are harder than anything in the main game. The Mad Cow Disease scenario took me about sixteen full runs, and I had better luck starting in India instead of the suggested Saudi Arabia, which I personally thought was funny.

 

Would I recommend this game? Nah. It's interesting to see how diseases can spread, but...it's the year 2020. I think we're all experts in that now.

55 trophies for Plague Inc. Evolved on PS4 is much, much better than going for the PC version, which has a whopping 211 achievements. Before the Fake News update for the game on Steam, to which they added 12 achievements, I got the 100%, which took me 80+ hours to get all of the 199 achievements. NAZG is the one that requires you the most attention, because important News Feeds will disappear in a nick of time. I played it again on a dummy PS account, but this time, downgrading it using the 1.00 exploit, so I only had to complete 10 Disease types and 20 scenarios, to which I didn't subject myself to the insanity of Mad Cow Disease scenario. That scenario is fucking hard to even 3 Biohazards (stars) on the easiest difficulty, which that itself is purely luck-based. It took me at least 20-30 attempts to complete it in my base account. Plus, the guide for the game here on PSNProfiles is outdated, and even the NAZG guide is so wrong, because it did NOT even work. At all. Instead, I relied on the playstationtrophies.org website, which is 10x better. 

Edited June 15, 2020 by BadRep24

[Eagle]

On 15/06/2020 at 2:02 PM, Cassylvania said:

Platinum #220 - The Last of Us: Remastered

 

Exactly seven years since the worldwide release of TLoU, I have the platinum. Again. Although this was my first time playing through Grounded mode and Left Behind.

Grounded was... not nearly as bad as Brutal on Uncharted, but I wasn't able to get enough gears to upgrade all my weapons on two playthroughs. My third playthrough was on Easy and I had to get all the way to Tommy's Dam to get the last trophy. Didn't take too long, but yeah... I wish I had just done my first playthrough on Easy. Probably would've found enough gears that way.

 

I'm not one of those people who think this is the best game ever made, and I actually prefer the Uncharted series because I am freakin' sick of post-apocalyptic stories, but it's good enough for what it is. I'd still give it an 8/10 and recommend it to anybody who hasn't played it already, which basically eliminates everybody on these forums. Can any of you honestly say you've never played TLoU before? I really want to know. If you haven't, why not? Is it in your backlog, is it that you're not a fan of MP trophies, or do you share my views when it comes to zombie games?

 

And if you have played it, are you picking up the sequel this week?

 

I've actually never played TLoU before, because I'm not exactly the biggest fan of linear games and it didn't seem all that innovative to me, so it's not a priority for me to play right now, but, in the future, if I have the opportunity, why not?

 

And I'm also not picking up the sequel, because games on launch here are mad expensive, and, again, not a current priority.

Edited July 4, 2021 by Eagle

[Arcesius]

18 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

As for the topic at hand... I trust reviews more than trailers because at least some reviewers will try to be somewhat objective. You're not going to see a trailer that announces all the bugs, gameplay issues, or story flaws. At the same time, you have to recognize reviews are often just opinions. Somebody mentioned that Joseph Anderson hated Darkest Dungeon (actually, that was @Arcesius in his thread). I watched that video not too long ago, and while I obviously disagree with his overall take (just like I did with A Plague Tale), he brought up some valid points that I hadn't considered. That's what's nice about reviews. Sometimes it's hard to step back and take a critical look at why a game might be good or bad. I always use this as an example, but for the longest time, I thought Skyrim was a bad game. It wasn't until I compared it to Dark Souls that I realized why that experience was lacking, even though I was having fun. And while I'm probably in the minority in thinking that, I have found others who feel the same way. Without that critical analysis, you would think that Skyrim is the perfect game, based on all the hype and professional review scores it received.

 

Yeah exactly. And I've made both experiences, too. With Darkest Dungeon, I watched the review, and while I was still interested in the game, I kinda forgot about it for a long time (due to the negative review). I still picked it up and ended up loving it! 

 

Contrarily, I wasn't all too interested in Persona 5 but it is in the top-5 highest rated PS4 games of all time (with P5R being the second game on that list), and Rob (Playstation Access) wouldn't shut the hell up about it. I think you know how I feel about that game. 

 

I agree with your statement though. In both cases, I can clearly see points in the corresponding reviews that I agree with, and others where I just don't. At all. Which is why I prefer to see some gameplay footage over watching a review. If I like what I see, I will usually give the game a chance and see for myself. 

 

 

18 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

I'm not one of those people who think this is the best game ever made, and I actually prefer the Uncharted series because I am freakin' sick of post-apocalyptic stories, but it's good enough for what it is. I'd still give it an 8/10 and recommend it to anybody who hasn't played it already, which basically eliminates everybody on these forums. Can any of you honestly say you've never played TLOU before? I really want to know. If you haven't, why not? Is it in your backlog, is it that you're not a fan of MP trophies, or do you share my views when it comes to zombie games?

 

I haven't played any of the Uncharted games, nor TLOU. I guess back in the PS2 days I was too young to care for these types of games (I played mostly JRPGs and stuff like GoW, DmC and such), and I then switched to X360 instead of getting a PS3... 

 

It's too late for me now ? But honestly, that again goes with my point above. I don't really care now much people praise these games. I've watched footage of U4 and TLOU, and it just doesn't look like something I'd enjoy, so I just don't see myself choosing to play any of these games over all the other games I have in my backlog that I genuinely look forward to playing. And no, it doesn't have anything to do with the trophy list. 

 

 

Soooo... no, no TLOU2 for me ? I didn't even care enough to watch any leaks or anything. 

[Sword]

20 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

I'm not one of those people who think this is the best game ever made, and I actually prefer the Uncharted series because I am freakin' sick of post-apocalyptic stories, but it's good enough for what it is. I'd still give it an 8/10 and recommend it to anybody who hasn't played it already, which basically eliminates everybody on these forums. Can any of you honestly say you've never played TLOU before? I really want to know. If you haven't, why not? Is it in your backlog, is it that you're not a fan of MP trophies, or do you share my views when it comes to zombie games?

 

And if you have played it, are you picking up the sequel this week?

Mini rant incoming. Brace yourself!

 

I'm another one of those people that have never played TLOU, Uncharted or even Borderlands for that matter.

 

I'll just be straight up, I'm not a fan of MP trophies in the slightest. I've bypassed several games I've wanted to play because of MP trophies (Some SAO games, Monster Hunter World, FF14, etc). For personal reasons I'm just trying to stick to SP games as much as I can from now on and it's a devotion to that goal that I'll skip almost every MP game in existence. Also because I care about my % completion way too much to screw it up too much by risking MP servers going down. I'm OK not having 100% if there's a POSSIBILITY that I could go back and finish something, but to have a server shut down and give the middle finger to something I'm working so hard for over the next few years with NO chance to remedy it if I wanted? Yeah, not a fan. I'm much more comfortable playing a MP game at launch than 7 years or so into the release, cause then many many more people are online so the boosting/trophy hunter scene will be extremely high.

 

I'm also not a fan of post-apocalyptic/zombie stories either. I think a LONG time ago I saw the first 30 minutes or so of TLOU in a Stream and it I just went "oh ok". Now, this doesn't mean the game is bad by any means or something of the sort. I'd just much much much rather spend my time playing a Tales, Final Fantasy, Dark Souls, JRPG/RPG with swords and anime than something like TLOU. Which is OK. I wouldn't force someone who didn't like JRPGs to sit down and plat/play through a 60 hour long game + 120 hours of grinding just cause I loved it. No way! We all got different tastes. I just shake my head at certain people who will go "Wow you're missing out sooo much by not playing TLOU. What kinda person are you?" Well, you're missing out on some amazing Tales games, what kinda person are you? Okay, moving on....

 

However, TLOU is one of those games that I would actually legitimately pick up just for the trophies if it was all single player driven (at least with the trophies). I play a LOT of games "just for the trophies". If I had to guess I'd say around 50% or more of my games are just trophy based these days. I've kinda grown out of games just for the sake of games. I play for the hunt now and occasionally find a rare gem that goes into my "I'd play this even if it didn't have trophies" list. Dragons Dogma, Star Ocean, Tales and Final Fantasy are examples those types of games for me. I suppose I would play TLOU if I had someone to basically strap me on their back and carry me completely through all the MP crap. Then I'd give TLOU a go.

 

Now as for TLOU2... I'm not going to get it at launch because I'm waiting to see what the inevitable DLC will bring to the table. If it turns out to be all single player based trophies then I'll definitely be buying TLOU2 down the road. Without starting a flame war though, I wouldn't be buying TLOU2 for the story. Let's just say there are certain things I disagree with and don't need "woke culture" to "enlighten" me or change my mind on how I view certain aspects of the world. Not going to happen.  

[Rune_Crys]

On 6/15/2020 at 0:02 PM, Cassylvania said:

Can any of you honestly say you've never played TLOU before?

 

*raises hand*

 

I don't like post-apoc stories and zombie apoc stories because, well, I'm in the majority that we don't want that sort of event to happen. With COVID-19 ravaging the world's economy right now, I think that the whole idea of an epidemic virus turning people into zombies isn't really in good taste. Myself, I don't like the thought o f an apocalypse, but then again, I'm one of these people who fear the End of the World and ipost-apoc stories are unreal because, let's face it, if you want a post-apoc story, it would have no humans in it, just mutant roaches crawling over the ruins of civilization. Maybe the world of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon is post-apoc because the only creatures living there are Pokemon and they said that humans disappeared from that world long ago. (The main character is a human turned into a Pokemon by some weird reason, hell, if you REALLY want post-apoc stories, play Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Darktness/Time/Sky! Your character gets sent to the future where 'the world is patalyzed' and it's as post and apocalyptic as you can get!)

5 hours ago, Sword said:

For personal reasons I'm just trying to stick to SP games as much as I can from now on and it's a devotion to that goal that I'll skip almost every MP game in existence.

Hi there, fellow SP player! I also detest MP trophies and try to avoid games requiring them unless I can co-op boost with two controllers.

[Darling Baphomet]

55 minutes ago, Rune_Crys said:

I don't like post-apoc stories and zombie apoc stories because, well, I'm in the majority that we don't want that sort of event to happen. With COVID-19 ravaging the world's economy right now, I think that the whole idea of an epidemic virus turning people into zombies isn't really in good taste. Myself, I don't like the thought o f an apocalypse, but then again, I'm one of these people who fear the End of the World and ipost-apoc stories are unreal because, let's face it, if you want a post-apoc story, it would have no humans in it, just mutant roaches crawling over the ruins of civilization.

 

Eh, I mean, I think it's pretty realistic to assume that you'd have at least a few people surviving in bunkers. It really depends on what kind of apocalypse it is, though - global war could wipe out our infrastructure without actually killing us if no nukes were deployed. A plague (like a zombie apocalypse) could take out most of the world's population while leaving a tiny amount of survivors (too few to keep the world running) to scavenge among the ruins. It's not unrealistic to assume that there are scenarios where people would survive.

Edited June 16, 2020 by Darling Baphomet

[Cassylvania]

On 6/15/2020 at 4:53 PM, BadRep24 said:

55 trophies for Plague Inc. Evolved on PS4 is much, much better than going for the PC version, which has a whopping 211 achievements. Before the Fake News update for the game on Steam, to which they added 12 achievements, I got the 100%, which took me 80+ hours to get all of the 199 achievements. NAZG is the one that requires you the most attention, because important News Feeds will disappear in a nick of time. I played it again on a dummy PS account, but this time, downgrading it using the 1.00 exploit, so I only had to complete 10 Disease types and 20 scenarios, to which I didn't subject myself to the insanity of Mad Cow Disease scenario. That scenario is fucking hard to even 3 Biohazards (stars) on the easiest difficulty, which that itself is purely luck-based. It took me at least 20-30 attempts to complete it in my base account. Plus, the guide for the game here on PSNProfiles is outdated, and even the NAZG guide is so wrong, because it did NOT even work. At all. Instead, I relied on the playstationtrophies.org website, which is 10x better. 

 

Yeesh. We lucked out on PS4. I definitely think if I had to do it all over again that I'd start with the 1.00 version, finish all of the scenarios, and then add the patch. I've had several people message me about the game recently,  so I think there's still a lot of confusion out there about how to obtain some of the trophies.

 

On 6/16/2020 at 7:51 AM, Arcesius said:

Contrarily, I wasn't all too interested in Persona 5 but it is in the top-5 highest rated PS4 games of all time (with P5R being the second game on that list), and Rob (Playstation Access) wouldn't shut the hell up about it. I think you know how I feel about that game. 

 

Rob also isn't very good at games, so I take what he says with a grain of salt. ? But I will say I've already started writing my P5R review (yeah, this is a thing I do now) and it's shaping up to be my longest review yet.

 

On 6/16/2020 at 10:07 AM, Sword said:

Now as for TLOU2... I'm not going to get it at launch because I'm waiting to see what the inevitable DLC will bring to the table. If it turns out to be all single player based trophies then I'll definitely be buying TLOU2 down the road. Without starting a flame war though, I wouldn't be buying TLOU2 for the story. Let's just say there are certain things I disagree with and don't need "woke culture" to "enlighten" me or change my mind on how I view certain aspects of the world. Not going to happen.  

 

Based on what I saw in the leaks, the story is bad. Based on what I've been reading on the forums (from people who have actually played the game), it's better in context. Most people seem to be praising every aspect except the writing, but even that is getting average or better reviews (if we ignore the trolls and people who have already made up their minds), so I'm curious what I'll think. I might just watch a Let's Play. Let me know if anybody knows of any good ones.

 

As for MP trophies... TLOU has a huge boosting group on Discord that meets every Saturday. The sessions I were in usually lasted around 8 hours, and it'll take about three full sessions to get all the MP trophies. You don't have to stay the whole time. For the most part, all you have to do is take turns winning matches. The only time it gets intense is when a random joins the game (usually because somebody got disconnected), but that is only an issue when they're supposed to be on the losing team and they usually quit out when they see their teammates being useless.

 

That's basically it for now. The past week has been slow. I've platinumed three games since Spider-Man, so that means I'm allowed to finish three more Palaces in P5R. I've done two so far. Not sure what game I'll do next. Briste swears to me that FFVII fits my "disease" theme, so maybe I'll start working on that.

 

I see Two Point Hospital has joined the league of indie games to add more DLC. Thanks, TPH. Appreciate that. How about you, The Long Dark? You've been quiet for a while. You want to drop another episode on me? Minecraft, it's been six months. I think you could squeeze in at least three more DLC packs before you hit the max. How about it, Cities: Skylines? We're anxiously awaiting your next glitchy trophy. Prison Architect, are you even alive?

 

Do you guys... Do you feel my pain?

[Rally-Vincent---]

21 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

Based on what I saw in the leaks, the story is bad. Based on what I've been reading on the forums (from people who have actually played the game), it's better in context. Most people seem to be praising every aspect except the writing, but even that is getting average or better reviews (if we ignore the trolls and people who have already made up their minds), so I'm curious what I'll think. I might just watch a Let's Play. Let me know if anybody knows of any good ones.

 

I think the story is more intense if you experience it by playing it yourself someday rather that just watching a Let's Play - or better: not the story itself so much, but what you take from it. I can't tell if you are going to like it or not; it'll be different for the next guy. This one is all down to personal preference to storytelling, especially the ending. I wanted to write something about the ending, but even if vague, it'd be a spoiler, so I won't. I'll just say that I think it's different being in the driver's seat rather than sitting shotgun.

 

Regarding the reception of the game:

 

Spoiler

I think the game would be much better received were it not a sequel, but a standalone tile. The first game is a hindrance to the story. It weighs on the player.

 

I do not regret buying and playing TLOU Part 2, but I reckon, it is a coin flip.

 

Edited June 23, 2020 by Rally-Vincent---