KYC 777

[Metal Slime King]

27 minutes ago, voodoo_eyes said:

Whenever I died in the Vita version, my "interact" button would stop working and instead it would be bound to jumping.

 

Well jumping is a "form" of interaction, I suppose. Kind of glad I decided to switch this game out.

[voodoo_eyes]

12 minutes ago, Metal Slime King said:

 

Well jumping is a "form" of interaction, I suppose. Kind of glad I decided to switch this game out.

 

If only you could open doors by throwing yourself at them. .

 

I actually liked the game, well the PS4 version at least. The story was pretty good and teh gameplay was fine. Thing is I absolutely hated Lone Survivor and thought I'd dislike Claire as well as a result. As they're both really similar in art style and gameplay.

[eigen-space]

1 hour ago, voodoo_eyes said:

For me there were a couple of other major differences between both versions. The Vita version runs considerably worse and it has a bug that requires you to quit the game in order to fix it. Whenever I died in the Vita version, my "interact" button would stop working and instead it would be bound to jumping.

 

I'm doing my nightmare run right now and am finding that when I die, sometimes I'll have to quit the game because it won't return to the start menu. I'm also finding that the controls change, except it's the jump and run buttons that are transposed...

[voodoo_eyes]

12 minutes ago, eigen-space said:

 

I'm doing my nightmare run right now and am finding that when I die, sometimes I'll have to quit the game because it won't return to the start menu. I'm also finding that the controls change, except it's the jump and run buttons that are transposed...

 

It sure is a weird one, as I had no issues with the controls on the PS4 version.

[crimsonidol38]

Game 6, Day 1
Owlboy (PS4)

 

Well, where do I start? Honestly I don't know as Owlboy just seems to be yet another action-adventure/platformer/metroidvania lite with a pixel-based look. AFAIR developement for it was initially started in 2007 and it was first released in 2016, which is a rather long period, considering that it's "only" an indie-game.

 

Owlboy takes place in a world consisting of floating islands and where both humans and humanoid owls live side by side. The player takes control of Otus, a rather young owl who was born voiceless and that doesn't seem to be that strong as the game starts with some nightmare where evil ghosts seem to haunt him for his weak capabilities. After he wakes up he is greated by his teacher/elder and is tasked to go on patrol to watch out for one troublemaker. While heading to his patrol spot you get to meet the few inhabitants of the village like a bard or Geddy, who's Otus' best friend and the village's engineer.  Soon you will find yourself in the first "dungeon" and shortly after on your way to hinder some air pirates from invading the capital (and just a guess: from taking over the world).

 

So far I have played for about 1.5 hours and from what I can say the game surely looks nice but the gameplay didn't catch my interest so far. Like already mentioned this game features a pixel-based look. For me it seems to somehow similar to Iconoclasts as both games seem to resemble the 16bit-era. A few impressions from Owlboy (taken from Steam):

Spoiler

 

The art surely looks nice and vivid and one nice plus is that there's also a small day-night-cycle. The music is so-so so far. Once the main part of the game started the music got more enjoyable but the first 40 minutes or so were quite annoying as some tunes felt like they were repeating every 5 seconds.

 

The gameplay seems to follow the standard formula for metroidvanias. Getting upgrades to open up new areas or having access to once blocked passages, finding a lot of collectibles (there seem to be 2800 coins to collect, but they mostly come in either a bulk of 30+ coins or 3 coins each) which you can exchange for yet some other upgrades. The only thing that somehow stands out are the controls so far. As Otus is an owl he has the ability to fly. To initate a flight you have to jump by pressing . After that you just move the left stick to initiate the flight and move around. When you press a second time Otus will land on the ground. While Otus is on his own he's able to perform a pirouette to whirl away obstacles by pressing . He can also pull up various objects out of the ground by pressing , which is also the button you have to press when you want to enter/leave a building, or interact with an object/person . Those objects may be hidden treasure chests, food to replenish health, rocks or some people like Otus' friend Geddy. Once Otus picked up Geddy he's able to let him shot the various enemies or obstacles by aiming with the right stick and pressing . If Otus has to drop Geddy or the object he can also aim with the right stick and press again, which will then throw the object/Geddy towards the location which is highlighted by a reticle.

A few minutes into the game you also get the ability to teleport Geddy to your current position by pressing if he should sitand right beside an object you want to interact with as the controls seem to quite fiddly at those points.

 

My first impression about the game is kinda mixed. I think that the art is really nice-looking but the controls feel like a mess to me. This is surely a game where I would enjoy the option to remap the controls ingame as I think it's kinda unintuitive to interact with objects/persons by pressing . I found myself quite often canceling a flight as I wanted to press to interact with something.

The gameplay doesn't feel to be special at all. It just seems to be kinda unusual for such a game to not have any type of map. But the world doesn't seem to be that big so I guess it shouldn't be a real problem later on. Getting all the coins will be a bit more troubling though as I already traversed the Otus' hometown and the first small dungeon and somehow missed a small porition of them (I have about 270 of 300 for the hometown and about 290 of 300 for the dungeon). Who thought it would be a good idea to include such a big amount of them?

Edited July 17, 2018 by Crimson Idol

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

3 minutes ago, Crimson Idol said:

Game 6, Day 1
Owlboy (PS4)

 

Well, where do I start? Honestly I don't know as Owlboy just seems to be yet another action-adventure/platformer/metroidvania lite with a pixel-based look. AFAIR developement for it was initially started in 2007 and it was first released in 2016, which is a rather long period, considering that it's "only" an indie-game.

 

Oooh wow, hadn't realised someone was reviewing Owlboy. I'm going to pay attention. @MosesRockefeller will want to know if the game not having a map ends up being a problem for you.

 

Also, indie titles can take a long time to release because people are developing next to their regular jobs. I mean, Stardew Valley was in development for over five years. Miegakure still has not released, and that had a playable demo in 2010.

[ImBossy83]

Game #6

 

Fallout New Vegas

 

Impression

 

I had the whole dreaded New Vegas Experience, one companion got stuck with her dog and couldn't move forward, on the first save i couldn't use one of the Game Mechanics ( VATS) because reasons, than i started a new save and the game crashed halveway through the tutorial. The third save worked but the issues this game has still where there. One time the game almost went down to a slideshow. I have a vague understanding why this game is the lowest rated 3D Fallout on Metacritic. I had a bit of a problem with the main characters motivation. If i get shot in the desert and loose my memory i would probably for the time being remain a low profile rather than chasing my shooters.

 

I played for about 8 hours and i got 1 trophy.

My completion went to 54.18% (-1,12%).

 

The verdict

 

I will play through this game one day, that's for sure but it's not my main priority following this Event(Spec Ops: The Line would be my #1 so far). I think it's hard to rate a Long RPG after such a short amount of time but at the moment i think around 8 out of 10 would be my judgement. Minus points for the bugs and underwhelming first few hours. Other than that it's more Fallout and that's always appreciated.

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #6 - Need for Speed - Final Impression

 

Time played: 8 hours

Trophies earned: 15/46

 

 

Oh boy...

 

I'm not even sure where to begin with this one. I guess I might as well start with a quick recap on what the game would be like.

 

• Tuning options ✅
• cringeworthy story ✅
• shit music ✅
• kick whoever was responsible to make this game online... Oh, I wished there was a fucking check mark for that one.

 

I'm just going to skip the story as it's just utter trash, as are the characters. Those are the guys and girls that you'll be doing all them races for, so you can expect to see and hear a whole lot of them.

 

Speaking of hearing, here comes my first major gripe with this game. The goddamn calling... every time one of the 4-6 (maybe more further down the line) tosspots has a new race for you, they call you. Doesn't matter, if your in the middle of a race or whatnot. Let me tell you, it's distracting as hell, not to mention irritating as fuck.

 

Anyway... you pick your races from the world map, and they differentiate in drifts, time trials, sprints, circuit races, drag races and team drifting. They're divided into main missions and side events. At the beginning of the game you get to pick 1 low tier car and start doing races to earn money and rep. Both of which are needed to unlock new upgrades and the cash can get you new cars as well. The best part about this game, is that the tuning is back, albeit locked behind story missions for the most part.

 

Because the NFS team isn't very original, there are of course teleporting cops chasing you again. At least the driving seems good for the most part.

 

An oddity that I've come to realise, is that no matter if you win, lose or give up on a race,  there'll be check mark next to it. Which to me makes no sense.

 

My 2nd gripe, that's been making me livid, is that the settings don't save. Meaning that every time I boot up the game I need to adjust the car view again. That's not the only thing that the game won't let you do. When you start the game you need to join the online by default and only after that you can change the setting to "play alone". Which will kick you out of the game again and put you through another loading screen. That's if the game doesn't give you the finger and tells you, that you've been disconnected from the server. That's something that happened every single time I tried it today over the course of hour (4 times). Now you may wonder why I don't just play online with other people on the same map. Well, two reasons. For one, other players fuck with your races. Second, the framerate goes to absolute shit. It has literally become unplayable, as the lag makes it impossible to even attempt to make a turn.

 

This was an alright experience for the first two days, but today is just lag city and the game won't allow me to "play alone", because it apparently crashes the server.  As a result this ends up being the worst game from my list. Goddamn mandatory online in a single player game .

Edited July 18, 2018 by voodoo_eyes

[MarkusT1992]

Game #6: Spy Chameleon

 

 

Spy Chameleon is a stealth puzzle game. It has 5 missions with 15 levels per mission totaling at 75 levels. You can play the game in two different difficulty settings in which progress is saved seperatly. That means you have a total of 150 levels to play. Or you couls skip the normal difficulty and only play on hard because most of the trophies require playing on hard anyway.

The difference between the two difficulties is that on hard everything is faster.

 

The missions are supposed to be a story although the devs could just have let them out. The first mission is to take some photos of a celebrity which only is done after completing the last level of that mission. That's the same with the second misson, which was to steal a picture, and so on. The missions only really set the environment of the levels.

The first levels were pretty easy and only had some basic obstacles. The first level only had you walk between robots without touching them. Touching means restart. Later the robots got view cones you have to avoid. Again, stepping in them means restart. Other obstacles are security cameras which require you to hide on colored carpets. For that you can change the collor of the chameleon to one of the four Playstation button collors by pressing the corresponding button. The longer you stay visible the more a circle around you will shrink. Then you have fish in a bow with a view cone. You can bumb against the bowl so the fish move and you can go on. That's all the obstacles that appeared in the first two missions.

 

Completing a level is pretty easy in general. The hard part of the game are the challenges in each level. There are three per level and they are always the same. First, collect all flys, second a time challenge and third collecting every ladybug. The ladybugs only appear after completing the level once though. That means you have to play each level at least twice. I normaly go for the time first and collect everything the second time. The levels are quite short, normaly lasting 5 to 20 seconds if you are fast.

By the way, I beat nearly every time of  @Ezio Auditore 

 

I completed the first two missions on normal and hard with all challenges done so far. On normal I had no real trouble completing every challenge but on hard I had to try some levels several times. I enjoyed the game up to this point. You have to figure out the best route through each level which is a lot of fun for me. Every time I make a mistake I know that I have to do it a little different. Sometimes it means to cut a corner a bit more or wait a little bit longer befor going on. That being said, the view cones are pretty accurate. One pixel is enough to catch you.

 

Time played: The game says a bit under 2h but actually it was more like 3-4

Trophies: 14/31

Rating:

Edited July 18, 2018 by MarkusT1992

[eigen-space]

Claire Review

Actually finished this game pretty quickly-- maybe 5-6 hours went into it for a platinum? Would be about 3-4 hours if I played on the PS4 rather than the Vita as the PS4 does not require 2 play throughs.

The Good

-->Easy game play... not too much to learn with the controls apart from running, jumping, and pulling objects

-->Interesting story... though not much of a story, I was intrigued the entire time. Really wanted to find out everything about Claire

-->Length... this game is exactly as long as it needs to be. It doesn't try to drag on, which is great. Not all games need to be made into 40+ hour adventures.

 

The Bad

--> Visuals... though the visuals aren't bad per se, sometimes doors you need to walk through are hard to see. You are given various items to light up your surrounds, but sometimes even the strongest light won't show you the door/vent/opening you need to enter

-->Glitches... sometimes when I died, the game wouldn't take me to the start menu; it would take me restarting the game to get it to work again (just extra motivation to not die!). However, if I didn't need to restart the game, whenever I'd load my save, buttons would be mixed up (walk with be jump, etc).

 

Starting Completion: 92.16%
Last Reported Completion: 91.33%
Current Completion: 92.47% (+0.31 / +1.14)

[DamagingRob]

Bonus game #4- Strike Vector EX

 

What's the name of this event again? Lol. I was killing it pretty good, and thought I might actually dip under 90% before the end. Now, I'm not so sure.. But here's another bonus review. 

 

I didn't get this from Plus. I bought it in a Flash Sale for $3, as it looked pretty cool. It's not quite what I was expecting. I thought it would be something similar to Zone of the Enders, but it's more of a flight sim. But I did still enjoy it, so it's all good. 

 

Basically, you fly around in your... jet? I don't know what these things are. Mech might be a better word. At times, you'll be required to shoot down enemies, or fly from checkpoint to checkpoint as fast as possible. Pretty much it. But there are quite a few different weapons and abilities you can equip. 

 

There's the Carabine, which ended up becoming my weapon of choice. Basically, fires fast explosive shots at enemies, and requires you to aim. Then there's homing missiles, a gatling gun, plasma rifle, rocket launcher, shotgun, and swarm missiles. Most are self explanatory. Homing missiles follow enemies, gatling gun functions like a machine gun, plasma rifle is your sniper weapon, rocket launcher is similar to the Carabine, but take longer to reload and have less shots per reload, shotgun is for close range combat, and swarm missiles fire missile volleys at everyone in range (yes, even allies). And then there are perks you can equip for faster reloading, more damage, faster firing rate, silent shots, better range, and larger magazines.

 

Then there are special abilities you can equip that take awhile to recharge. The tesla coil creates an electric field that destroys anyone close (and is fricking awesome). Then there's a shield, mines, emp, a temporary invisibility ability called ghost, a rocket booster that makes you go incredibly fast, and nano machines that heal your mech. There are also a ton more customization options available, like changing its color and various other aesthetic options.

 

Single player campaign is very short. Missions take 5 minutes or less, and there are only 15 of them. And the story is so haphazardly thrown together, it might not even be worth watching the scenes. One minute you're on one side, and then fighting for the other side in the next mission with no explanation as to how or why. So, kind of a disappointment there.. But at least it's fun to play. 

 

A large chunk of this game's trophies will be earned in the online multiplayer. Which is dead as a doorknob.. Guess you'll have to resort to boost- NO, WAIT! This game has bots! So you can Plat this game all on your own, like I did. Mostly played Capture the Flag and King of the Hill since they're supposed to be the best for XP. Although, I never actually tried the other modes. Capture the Flag is what it sounds like. Get to the other team's base and take their flag, then transport to yours. King of the Hill had you capture a point and hold onto it. All matches are 3-on-3 affairs, so you'll always have a couple of AI partners on your side. I would have rather not had them, when they kept flying in front of my shots and stealing my kills. 

 

Points you earn can be spent on customization items or artwork. And you can give them all up at Level 44 to Prestige, which you will be doing a number of times if you want the Plat. The grind for this is not as bad as it may seem when knocking out the miscellaneous online trophies. Once I finished everything but the Pappy 45 online trophy, I used a method mentioned in this site's trophy guide's comments. And using it, you can level up to 44 in just 2-3 10 minute matches. You need the right map to do it, though. Which I'd just create a match and leave if it wasn't Firestorm (should be able to tell from the loading screen instead of waiting for the minute countdown for the match to start), and then vote for Firestorm if it was one of the 3 options. Quitting out if it wasn't. 

 

And after all that was done, I went back to single player to complete the challenges. Some of which made me rage a bit, but weren't too difficult to get gold medals on. Just glad they didn't ask for platinum medals, because that would have likely sucked.

 

So yeah, not much else to say. It's pretty fun flying around shooting down enemies, but does get old after awhile. I don't think it's worthy of a , but not bad enough to be a  either. I'd put it somewhere in between. Definitely worth the $3 I paid for it. 

 

Time played: 10-15 hours? Not really sure. But I think it was a lot less than the 20 hour Plat estimate, thanks to that faster level up method.

Trophy progress: 41/41 for 100% and an S rank.

 

P.s. Other than a single F-bomb drop, I don't know why this game has an M rating.. 

Edited July 19, 2018 by DamagingRob

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

7 hours ago, MarkusT1992 said:

By the way, I beat nearly every time of  @Ezio Auditore 

 

I completed the first two missions on normal and hard with all challenges done so far. On normal I had no real trouble completing every challenge but on hard I had to try some levels several times.

 

Well, if it makes you feel good...

 

That I played only on hard, didn't bother with replaying many levels and got bored with the game before reaching the end probably has nothing to do with it.

 

Get into Rayman Legends and see if you can keep up with @vin_rob and me, then we'll talk

 

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #7 - Mages of Mystralia - Preview

 

Don't know much about this one to be honest. Watched maybe 5 minutes of gameplay and that was it. From what I gather, it's an action-adventure that uses spellcrafting as a tool to solve puzzles. It looked neat and seemed original enough to give it a go. Let's hope it doesn't suck.

 

Expectation:

Not going into this with any to be honest. If the spellcrafting and the use of the spells is intuitive and smooth then it might be a lot of fun. If it's clunky to control then I'm going to hate it. I hope this won't be another indie title that's just mediocre though. Then again, I already had my surprise of the event with Solus Project.

 

 

Speaking of which. I've been playing this as a palate cleanser in-between sessions of NFS and am now around 15 hours in. got lost a couple of times while searching for collectibles.There have been the odd "horror" moments, but it's hardly a horror game. I'M in the final third of the game by now and still enjoying it.

[dmland12]

Game #6: Lumo

Trophies: 37/43 (76%)

Completion: 93.38% (-0.18%, -2.90% from start)

 

Lumo is a 2.5D isometric puzzle platformer that was on PS+ sometime last year.  I really had very little idea what it was or what to expect when I decided to throw it in for this event.  After playing it a little while, it was reminding me a lot of an old NES game I remember playing a long, long time ago.  It took me about a day before I could recall the name of the game, but it eventually came to me:  Solstice.  That's a rather obscure game that I hadn't thought about in ages, but I'm about 99.99% sure this game is inspired by it.

 

In Lumo, you play as a child (you can choose your gender), that gets zapped into a video game.  In order to get out, you'll apparently need to collect 4 computer component/accessories for some reason.  It doesn't make a lot of sense, but just go with it. 

 

So is it any good?  The puzzling is fine...  But, there's a fair amount of annoyance in the platforming due to it being isometric.  It's pretty easy to miss your jumps and you can't really change the camera angle (you can tilt it very slightly with L1 or R1, but this doesn't do much and you might as well not bother).  It's also difficult to see where the blocks are actually supposed to be at times, again due to the fixed "camera."  There's also an icy area later in the game which adds sliding around to this and multiplies the frustration.  It's hard compared to your average puzzle platformer and you'll probably die in many situations where you'll feel like it's unfair.  Though, it generally won't set you back much as there's at least one checkpoint in every room.

 

I can see why some of the trophies are so rare.  The platforming gives a poor first impression, especially once you get to the harder areas.  But, if you've got the patience, the game does get easier to navigate and it's a fairly short game.  I went through two runs of the game.  The first one was a blind playthrough (no guides and I avoided looking stuff up if possible).  I was pretty much ready to give a negative review at that point.  But, the 2nd run (where I mainly focused on collectibles and other misc trophies) was much more enjoyable.  It really helped to know how to get past the more annoying parts.  And I was getting used to the platforming at that point.

 

I ended up enjoying the game, but it took me a while to warm up to it.  And before that there was certainly some frustration.

 

 

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

46 minutes ago, dmland12 said:

The platforming gives a poor first impression, especially once you get to the harder areas.  But, if you've got the patience, the game does get easier to navigate and it's a fairly short game.  I went through two runs of the game.  The first one was a blind playthrough (no guides and I avoided looking stuff up if possible).  I was pretty much ready to give a negative review at that point.  But, the 2nd run (where I mainly focused on collectibles and other misc trophies) was much more enjoyable.  It really helped to know how to get past the more annoying parts.  And I was getting used to the platforming at that point.

 

That might explain why I gave up in my first playthrough and gave it either a mediocre or bad review a KYC or two ago. Glad you enjoyed it though. I haven't deleted it from my PS4 yet (a Pro which has enough storage space anyway) but I don't see myself going back to it any time soon.

[crimsonidol38]

Game 6, Review
Owlboy (PS4)

Previous Posts:

Day 1

 

Didn't have much gaming time on tuesday but was able to put a few more minutes into the game yesterday. Didn't make it very far into the game. I finished the first major dungeon called Owl Temple and I'm now right at the end (?) of a story sequence related to the pirate's invasion of the capital Advent.

 

I don't know how many more dungeons will follow but the Owl Temple was rather straightforward. People who expect Zelda-like dungeons with multiple direction you can go to, different parts of rooms you can only reach hy going specific ways, or just altering other rooms by hitting a switch will be disappointed. It was more like one straight corriidor and the sideways were all rather short. This might change in the later dungeons, though.

During the dungeon I also got a new friend to join, the pirate Alfonso. Unlike Geddy he uses a rifle with a rather long charging time and he also the ability to torch specific vines or other obstacles. What the game didn't tell me was the fact how you actually switch between the different friends, which is simply done by pressing . Because after meeting Alfonso you have to get familiar with his abilities but shortly after you got swarmed by little enemies which can only be killed by the abilities of your friends. But as Alfonso's shot takes about 5 seconds before you can reuse it you have to whirl away those pesky enemies the whole time. After having to restart from a checkpoint I decided to do some random button presses and realized that would do the trick. Why do they show the actions for and the whole time but not for this one? Shortly after there was an escape-sequence where you actually had to use that ability to switch between the friends. I'm glad that I found out beforehand because otherwise this would have been frustrating as hell.

After the Owl Temple I had to sneak my way through Advent due to the ongoing invasion. During that stage I again realized that I dislike the button mapping as having to alter between  the flight and walking is quite annoying. Would have prefered to have the button for initiating a flight on one of the shoulder buttons honestly.  The same goes for the various interactions which I would have prefered on a face button.

 

While playing through this sneaking passage I also realized one annoying drawback: Why doesn't the game tell me when it saves? There doesn't seem to be a way to initiate manual saves on consoles and there's icon to indicate that you reached a checkpoint where the game saves. For me personally this is a real bummer as I don't know where I land when screw up and have to restart (which the game at least does automatically) and i also don't know if I can safely stop a session after getting some collectibles if I want to stop right after that.

 

Today I will spend a few minutes on the game as I want to wrap up the current cequence I'm in (had to end right before the end of it) but after that I will need a short break from it. So far, Owlboy is more of a letdown for me. There's no one thing that sticks out like a sore thumb but it's somehow the overall mix that I dislike. I hope that Axiom Verge which I will play later in this event will be more entertaining for me.

 

And sorry at @Ezio Auditore and @MosesRockefeller but I can't really alaborate on the fact how a missing map would influence the game in a negative way. My impression is that the overall game is straightforward and the missing map shouldn't influence it in a negative way. You may only have problems with it you try to go for all collectibles but as those aren't shown on maps normally it shouldn't make too much of a difference..

 

Stats:

Rating:

Total playing time: ~2.5hours
Trophies earned: 8 / 24
Completion rate: 22%

Rank: D 
Did the game lower my completion? Yes

 

My ratings:

 AWESOME!!!
 Fun to play, sure will continue playing these
 Good while it lasted, but let us just stay friends, kay?
 Be glad you weren't deleted already
  Wait, who are you? I don't know you...oh shit, you are in my trophy list

 

Sidenote:
I swapped the two PS3 games (God of War: Chains of Olympus and Prince of Persia: Sands of Time) against Life is Strange: Before the Storm and Rainbow Moon due to the ruckus with the one PS3 and as I won't have enough gaming time on a console for the next time slot. But I don't feel like Axiom Verge (the only Vita-game left from my original line-up) would deserve that. So I will play Rainbow Moon next.

Edited July 23, 2018 by Crimson Idol

[Metal Slime King]

4 hours ago, DamagingRob said:

Bonus game #4- Strike Vector EX

 

Ohh, I remember I played this for a past KYC shortly after it dropped on PS+ and haven't touched it since, so mission accomplished I guess. I never really looked into the requirements and was dreading the mp but knowing about the bots I might have to give it another shot. I really panned the storytelling in this, it's so bad.

[DamagingRob]

1 hour ago, Metal Slime King said:

Ohh, I remember I played this for a past KYC shortly after it dropped on PS+ and haven't touched it since, so mission accomplished I guess. I never really looked into the requirements and was dreading the mp but knowing about the bots I might have to give it another shot. I really panned the storytelling in this, it's so bad.

Lol. Yeah, the story left a lot to be desired. And the bots do make it a relatively simple grind. Kinda surprised the trophies are so rare with how short and easy it was. I did run into a random a couple of times, which is the only reason I switched modes. Capture the Flag matches last longer, so I preferred them. 

[Lars]

#Game 2

Because i was a bit late to the party this is a combined post. 

But first the review for Life is Strange, the game is just good. It tells a good story with well written characters and it introduces a mechanic with time rewinding which also leads to some puzzles to solve. The game has 5 acts of which i played 2 now. I definetely go back to this one after the event because i want to experience the story further because i want to know how it ends. 

I don't know how my choices will influence the rest of this game but i hope they have real noticable consequences. 

But for people who like telltale like games, this one is similar so if you enjoy those this one is definetely for you.
 

Now my predictions for game 3, i decided to play the other 3 games for 3 days. I have holiday now so loads of spare time and i really look forward to playing these games. First up is this one:

I really look forward to this game, i always liked the AC games but they always had some kind of repetitiveness to them. I for example enjoy Rogue, but the game has just too much content which makes it almost annoying to play. If you want to plat that you are looking towards a massive grind because the story is very short. In Origins i expect that there is loads of content because every open world Ubisoft game has that, but i also expect there to be a good story, with fun gameplay because i know the gameplay has changed to a more RPG kind of style. This may not fit the game completely but i think it really fits with Ubisofts style of open world design and content design. What i definetely expect is to be blown away by the graphics and the scenery. And i have the chance to play it on a bigger and better screen because tomorrow i will go and buy a new tv.

 

[ImBossy83]

Game # 6

 

Nioh

 

Nioh is a Hack'n Slash Soulslike with a lot of loot that's based in feudal Japan. With a 88 on Metacritic it is one of the best rated games of 2017. 

 

Why haven't i played it already?

 

 I bought it on a sale somewhere around the start of the year. But somehow there was always this other game i wanted to play, even though i like pretty much everything that this game is supposed to be.

 

Impression

 

The game is fast paced and you're going to die a lot.  You have to be patient in your fights and there's about a thousand thing's you need to think about (stances, titles, blessings, companion, stats, gear and so on). But most of it comes naturally through trial and error. And there's going to be a lot of error. Like in dark souls when you die you loose your Amrites (Souls) but you can collect them again where you died. I don't know, but the fact that i know i'm going to fail takes away all pressure. So i can try out what works and what doesn't. 

 

I played for about 5 hours and i got 2 trophies.
My completion went to 53.90% (-1,40%)

 

The verdict

 

Wow! I expected that i'm going to like this game but still, wow. I know that from an objective standpoint a game like Red Dead might be the better game but this game is a 10 out of 10 for me and my favorite of the event so far.

[jasondm300]

Couple of thoughts on some of my older games

 

Switch Galaxy Ultra

0 trophies

F ranking

4+ hours

 

I didn't get any trophies for this game.  The most common one is at 5.25%.  It plays like a medicore Audiosurf with lame music.  The controls felt a little loose to me, which is not ideal in a fast paced game.  I spent almost 2 hours trying to beat the 20000 in survival mode, and the most i got was 11000.  Glad I didnt pay for this pile of junk

 

Star Ocean: Till the End of Time

1/30 trophies for 1%

E ranking

7 hours

 

The third installment of the Star Ocean franchise.  I remember preordering this game when i got my first job.  You play as Fayt, a normal teenager who is on vacation with his parents and his childhood friend Sophie.  As they are chilling in their beach hotel, the place is attacked.  Fayt's parents are seperated from him, and Sophie and Fayt are transported to a safe zone.  On a transport back to their home planet, the transport ship is also attacked.  Some bad luck for Fayt.  He escapes via escape pod to the underdeveloped planet Vanguard III, where he helps a town defeat Norton, an offworld criminal trying to become essentially the king of the planet. 

It has been 14 or so years since i have played this game, and I would like to finish it, as I had never done so before.  I still think Second Story is the bestin this series, but this one is really fun too

 

Element4l

2/12 trophies for 10%

B ranking

3 hours

 

The game was a strange one.  It is a puzzle platformer where you play as a ball of atoms that can change to any of the four classical elements, earth fire water and air.  Each one has its own special properties to help get to the end od the level.  For example, air is your jump, fire helps you move forward, earth increases your mass and helps you speed up for ramps, and water is converted to ice to help you slide along.  This game ramped up in challenge really quickly.  For a game that has a lot of speedrunning qualities it adds, I was way to alow to take advantage of any of those.  There wasnt much of a Story at all, but it might be one where I'll do a level here or there

[voodoo_eyes]

Haven't started Mages of Mystralia yet, I did however plat The Solus Project. I still can't believe that I enjoyed this game as much as I did. Usually I can't stand collectible gathering, but in this one it was kind of fun. Maybe it was because a lot them were only accessible by completing puzzles. Anyhow, solid game and up to this point my favourite fromr my list.

[MarkusT1992]

14 hours ago, Ezio Auditore said:

 

Well, if it makes you feel good...

 

That I played only on hard, didn't bother with replaying many levels and got bored with the game before reaching the end probably has nothing to do with it.

 

Get into Rayman Legends and see if you can keep up with @vin_rob and me, then we'll talk

 

I mostly did the time challenge only once or twice. The times for normal and hard are seperated as everything in the game is.

 

I might start Rayman someday. Then I let you know when I beat your times

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

28 minutes ago, MarkusT1992 said:

I mostly did the time challenge only once or twice. The times for normal and hard are seperated as everything in the game is.

 

I might start Rayman someday. Then I let you know when I beat your times

You can only beat me if you play on the same days/weeks as me, so don't wait too long, the end is in sight for me

[xFalionx]

Game #3: Lost Planet 3 (PS3)

Final Review

Total playtime: about 3 hours

Trophies: 8/51 for an D rank

Completion:

Overall - 61.94% ->60.66% | -1.28%

Current - 61.40% -> 60.66% | -0.74%

Story:  

Spoiler

->Story? I don't know what that is but it sure sounds delicious.

->Kinda disappointing.

->Still a better love story than Twilight.

->Actually very interesting.

->What do you mean, "this is it"?. This can't be over already, I need this to continue!

This game has a focus on story and in that aspect it‘s pretty linear. The game is basically a retelling of the life of the protagonist from the time he arrived on this alien planet the game is set in. The story will lead to some important event that would probably be fairly interesting to someone who played the first two Lost Planet Games but I am totally clueless as I haven‘t played these games. In itself the story is fairly boring so far, with the protagonist arriving on the planet and going from order to order after that. „That dude is missing, go look for him.“, „Go and extract some T-ENG from that alieninfested cavern over there.“, „Go and save these dudes who crashed because apparently nobody who‘s headed for this planet knows how to land a damn space ship.“ and „Tighten some bolts because a storm is coming.“ we’re the extend of it so far. I‘m sure there are more interesting things to come but that‘s all that the beginning of the game has to offer.

 

I do, however, really love the background story and setting. Our protagonist was hired by an organisation with the objective to harness a new source of energy, T-ENG, which is abundant on the planet and within its creatures, the Akrid. The harsh environment would not be habitable without this substance and they sure are unwilling to give it up.

 

All I can give it at the moment is a silver rating.

 

Gameplay: 

Spoiler

->I've played VNs with better gameplay than this...

->It might not be fun but at least there's something to do in this game.

->It's alright.

->Hey, this is actually kinda fun.

->More addictive than heroin.

Most of your time will be spent crawling through alien infested caverns and tundras, emptying magazine after magazine into the inhabitants of the planet to accomplish the aforementioned tasks.

 

There are many different kinds of aliens with different attack styles. There is a type that jumps at you from afar, one that charges you, one that shoots some incredibly hot T-ENG at you and even armoured enemies that can only be damaged by hitting their very obvious, red glowing weak spot. There are also aliens that spew out smaller enemies in regular intervals which can only be taken out by throwing angrenade in their humongous birth-giving mouths, as well as exploding alien eggs.

 

These enemies are fun to fight in small groups but sadly the game loves to throw enormous groups of aliens at you inside cramped caverns, filled to the brim with exploding alien eggs. There‘s often enough enemies attacking you that it becomes nearly impossible to evade them without dodge-rolling like a madman, trying to evade any exploding eggs in the immediate viscinity while also trying not to get stuck in the aliens‘ humongous collision boxes. That‘s not fun.

 

This is really depressing as the game has also shown many examples of the battle system being fun. This usually happens with the stronger enemies, as they tend to appear in smaller packs of 2-4 aliens. With these numbers it is actually possible to dodge attacks while taking them out one after the other. Another thing that makes this great is that you get a grappling hook fairly early in the game which lets you evade in a three dimensional battlefield.

 

You also get your own rig, a large mech that is equipped with a drill and a utility arm. Sadly, the game likes to take this vehicle away from you around 30 seconds after you enter it. This thing is only there to get you 50 meters closer to your goal until you come across a cliff, cave entrance or whatever other means the developers could imagine to get you out of that damn thing and back on your own two feet to be demolished by the Akrid. The only real use this thing ever had was to tighten some bolts outside of the base. If you don't want the player to use the damn thing in gameplay, why even implement it? 

 

Anyways, the game plays like most other action games with the difference being that you're not entirely forced to follow the gauntlet of missions missions that makes up the bulk of the game, there are also side missions and you can choose to revisit areas that you've been to, for example to extract more T-ENG in order to upgrade your weapons.

 

There is also a multiplayer mode which looks very promising. There's a selection of game modes and a bunch of trophies to earn as well as an interesting progression system that reminds me of the sphere board from FFX. Sadly the MP is as dead as it gets and I've wasted half an hour trying to get into even just a single match, wanting to try it out. 

 

Visuals: 

Spoiler

->"Bold and Brash"? More like "Belongs in the Trash"...

->At least I can look at it without risk of spontaneous eye-bleeding.

->The looks aren't everything, right?

->A joy to look at.

->Picasso would be jealous.

The game has pretty good realistic graphics for the PS3 era and they have aged pretty well in my opinion. I especially love the alien designs. They don't have that weird humanoid look but instead they look like something that might have evolved on that faraway planet. In my opinion that is exactly how an alien should look, like something that bears little to no resemblance of the organisms on our own planet.

 

The Akrid have distinct looks, making it easy to distinguish between the different types there are. They do, however, follow the same theme and look like different forms of the same species.

 

This would be great and could easily warrant a gold rating, if there wasn't a major flaw: everything besides the aliens looks the same. No matter where you look, there's either an icy tundra devoid of life and filled with enough snowy winds that you can't see anything, or there's a cavernous region where you can't see anything because it's nearly pitch black in there. So not only are the locales repetitive as hell, you can't even see the fairly pretty graphics the game provides.

 

Audio: 

Spoiler

->Sounds like a dying animal.

->Bearable.

->I've heard worse.

->Brb, gotta update my playlist.

->You will remember me,~ remember me for centuries.~

Ah, finally a topic where I don't have any criticism. The soundtrack is fitting very well, the main theme that is played in the main menu is perfect for setting the right mood to get into the game and the couple songs you can select in the mecha work awfully well to symbolize something that reminds the protagonist of home back on earth. Of course this is not a Final Fantasy tier OST but it works well enough with the game to warrant a gold rating.

 

From now on I'll provide samples of the soundtrack of the game I'm reviewing. I'll also edit my older reviews when I find the time to do so. Here's the theme that plays when you start the game, if the video doesn't start at the right time, scroll ahead to 1 hour 2 minutes and 17 seconds into the video.

 

Spoiler

 

 

Difficulty: 

Spoiler

->My cat beat this while I was asleep.

->"Hard"? There is no "Hard".

->Mildly challenging.

->Apocalyptic.

->You think Dark Souls is hard? Grow some balls, little boy.

So yeah, the difficulty on the hardest setting in this game feels very cheap and annoying. Powerful enemies are easier to kill than the weakest in the game, just because you can't really evade them in large groups. Otherwise the difficulty feels fine but not really fun. The most frustrating part is that you have to rewatch your last cutscene if the last checkpoint was close to one. This drove me nuts, especially because the beginning, where you only have your pistol and are swarmed by hordes of "weak" enemies, has basically been the hardest part of the game so far.

 

Playing this on hard will probably take quite a while and I think in this particular game it takes away from the fun to be had, but what won't you do for some shiny trophies...

 

Grind: 

Spoiler

->404, grind not found.

->Hey, there's a leveling system!

->It's getting repetitive now.

->Typical JRPG.

->Why does the guide say the plat takes 300 hours when I beat the story in 10? Oh, that's why...

According to the trophy guide on another site that shall not be named, there are two main grinds: In singleplayer you have to collect enough T-ENG to fully upgrade your character and in multiplayer you have to gain enough EXP to unlock all of your sphere board perks. These don't seem too bad as the guide lists the plat as taking 25-30 hours and some of that is the story and some miscellaneous trophies but I can imagine it getting pretty boring, especially since you have to boost the MP since nobody plays the game anymore.

 

Value/€: 

Spoiler

->This game costs HOW much?!

->Isn't that a bit too much?

->Fair price.

->Hey, that's actually pretty cheap.

->I enjoyed every single one of the 500 hours I spent playing this and it was only five bucks.

At a normal price tag of 20€ it's actually not that bad. The story is interesting, probably even more so if you've played the other games and know what the importance of the story towards the whole of the franchise is. The gameplay is alright and could even be fun at a lower difficulty, where you aren't continuously mauled by the lowest tier of Akrid. The multiplayer looks like it would have been fun at release, when people were playing it.

 

If you got this game from Humble Bundle or through another means of cheap games, you've got a pretty great value out of your money. If you were to buy this game now I'd advise you to wait for a sale as the 20€ asking price is a bit too much in my opinion, at least nowadays.

 

Overall: 

Spoiler

->In the trash it goes...

->Forgettable.

->It was fun while it lasted.

->Memorable.

->Where has this been all my life? I never knew I needed this so much.

So overall, I really didn't enjoy my time with this game. I don't know what it was but I think I just wasn't in the right mood for frantic, dark third person shooter action. This is especially true as third person shooters really aren't my thing, especially not fast paced ones. I will, however, almost certainly come back to this game to finish the story and maybe pick out some miscellaneous trophies along the way. I'm fairly certain I won't go out of my way to boost the MP as I don't think that would be worth my time.

 

While I didn't get much enjoyment out of this title, being the worst experience on my list so far, I think this game might appeal to others more than it does to me. So don't let my review stop you from getting this game if you think that this game looks like something you could enjoy.

 

 

My next game will be Jak 3, going by the enormous lead in my poll. Really looking forward to that, even though I can only start playing on my second day, tomorrow as I've already spent all of my free time today writing this review. I don't think that's gonna be an issue though, as I've only got 5 games and my internship is ending tomorrow.

 

On 14.7.2018 at 2:26 PM, Ezio Auditore said:

A great puzzle game set in the lore of the Cthulhu mythos. If you're still gaming on PS3 and you don't hate either first person puzzling and/or Eldritch horrors, then there's no reason not to pick up this game, even at full price it has a long and fun enough solo story to offer.

You described me pretty well there, I guess I need to put another game onto my wishlist. One day I'll be able to play these games but at least this time it's a game that's available on a console that I own.  

 

On 15.7.2018 at 9:21 PM, voodoo_eyes said:

Game #5 - The Solus Project - Final Impression

I ended up enjoying this more than I thought I would, but I can't really explain why. The gameplay is kind of mundane, but the exploring all the nooks and crannies make is fun somehow I guess.

That's another entry that sounds pretty interesting and that I've never heard of before. Gotta remember this.

 

On 16.7.2018 at 6:13 PM, PerryToxteth said:

KYC777 Game No. 3

Walden, a game

Man, where do you people find these games?  

 

That's an interesting concept for a game and while I'm not that interested in the history of English poetry, I do think I would like this. I think this is already a new record of interesting games I've discovered through KYC.