Kill Your Completion ∞

[dizzyshadow]

So it turns out i was wrong my next game wasn't supposed to be Moss it was:

 

Game 5 : Spyro the Dragon

 

Part of the newly released Spyro Reignited Trilogy, I've not played the originals so only had a vague idea of what to expect. 

 

You are (unsurprisingly) a purple dragon called Spyro, the story revolves around you stopping an Orc? called Nasty Gnorc who takes offense at something a dragin says and encases them all in crystal, Spyro has to rescue them all, to this he just has to reach them and stand next to them and they will be set free, occassionally the freed drtagon will give you a tip but its usually something you have figured out yourself by then. Other than this there is virtually no story, and you are pretty much left to get on with it and do whatever you want there are just a few barriers which stop you progressing until you have completed certain targets.

 

The gameplay itself platforming, spyro can jump, glide, charge and breath fire between this you have complete all the levels while freeing the dragons and collecting treasure, leading to a final boss fight. There are several hub world which you roam around until you find a gateway to a new level, at which point Spyro will fly to the level, which is strange as my wife pointed out becuase Spyro is great at flying between the levels in the loading screens but on the normal levels he can't fly at all. 

 

its fairly relaxed experience there is not much of a challenge, would definitely suit younger gamers. however the remaster is very good i could have easily believed it was a brand new game, with perhaps the only exception being that it is a bit simplistic by modern game standards. 

 

I'm 5 hours in and according the game i'm over 70% of the way through (only 36% of the trophies) so this isn't going to a massive amount of playtime here. although you do get 3 games so i can't complain too much. Finally a word about the trophies as they are quite unusual in that they are nearly all for specific challenges rather than the typical collectibles or complete levels type that you would find in most of these type of games, in fact it seems like you could get the platinum without finishing the game (although i may be wrong)

 

One point to note if you are considering getting this even with the physical version there is a 20GB download as most of the 2nd and 3rd games aren't actually on the disk, so you need to install this before you can play either of those games.

 

I'm fully intending to return and try and 100% complete this game and its the first time in this event i really haven't wanted to move onto the next game.

 

Playtime: 5 Hours

Trophies: 13/27

Rating: 

Completion: 55.30% (-0.6%)

 

Next Up : Moss (yes really this time)

[ghostly-legend]

Update #2

 

Percentage before game #2 70.09 with 1869 unearned trophies

 

 

Game #2

 

Uncharted: Golden Abyss

 

Time played > 1 hour

Trophies 1/56

Did it lower my percentage yes -(0.44)

 

 

Percentage after starting game #2 69.65 with 1924 unearned trophies

 

Damn it has been a long time that i played a game that i didnt like. I love the uncharted games which i have played so far. But boy o boy i did not like this one. I have no idea what gave me that feeling or rather what gave me no feeling at all. it was just not doing it for me. Maybe i wasnt in the right mood to play it but normally i can start a game like this any day any time. Maybe it was just the vita and how it handles i still dont know. Before one hour had passed i put the vita down and was done with this game. I will give it a retry in some time since i really love the other uncharted games. 

 

I am planning to start LOTR war in the north tomorrow

 

[SyIaris]

20 minutes ago, ghostly-legend said:

I am planning to start LOTR war in the north tomorrow

 

Just butting in quick in case you aren't aware - that game has some gamebreaking bugs. Make sure you have a separate and/or backed up save before you go to Mirkwood, as it's by far the worst offender - I think the last stop's when you're in a dwarven city?

In general, a quick look to make sure all your quests are still on your list when you load in can save you some headaches, but isn't as big a deal as long as the main quest doesn't vanish on you.

 

You may not hit it, but you have to restart or find someone earlier in the game that can carry you past it if you do. 

[xFalionx]

Game #3: Oreshika: Tainted Bloodlines (PSVita)

Final Review

Total playtime: about 10 hours

Trophies: 6/48 for a C rank

Completion:

Overall - 65.01% -> 63.98% | -1.03%

Current - 64.71% -> 63.98% | -0.73%

 

The good:

• Visuals: Very pretty blend of the usual 3D anime art style, an Okami-like brush-drawn aesthetic for the dungeons and traditional Japanese drawings for interface and enemy sprites. There are also anime-style cutscenes that look pretty neat. 
• Audio: Very traditional Japanese sounding OST that fits in brilliantly with the setting. I generally really love the soundtrack of this game.
  Spoiler

  The main theme:

   

  Sometimes there the demons in the dungeons hold their own festivals and you get more loot for beating them. This is what plays during those times:

   

  And of course the battle theme:

   

• Setting: Japan in the year 1119 with lots of folklore.
• Gameplay: While making use of your standard JRPG turn-based battle system, the game spices things up by adding many interesting systems outside of the combat that keep things interesting.
• Settings: The game lets you choose how much time you intend to spend with the game and provides possible settings to speed up the passage of time while increasing experience gains, which causes them to balance each other out keeps you from getting much stronger than you should be at the time.
• Multitasking: Since this is the first Vita game in this list that doesn't use up all of your consoles' resources I'll add it as a good point. Finally a game I didn't have to quit each time I wanted to check on my trophies...
• Kouchin: Our adorable weasel manager and sidekick deserves yet another mention.  

The bad:

• Performance: The pretty graphics take their toll and the game feels a bit choppy at times, although with the type of game it is, it doesn't really need extremely smooth fps and it didn't bother me at all when I was playing the game. Nitpicking.
• Grind: Some people like it, others do not but this game is pretty grindy and some of the trophies look even grindier. I don't mind grinding in most cases but if you do, you're better off playing other games. 

The ugly:

• Difficulty: I don't know if the theoretical balancing of the settings above just doesn't cut it but the second boss battle was so easy, the boss didn't even get to attack more than twice. The game is pretty grindy and I feel the faster settings are much more fun in terms of pacing, so I probably wouldn't even play on a different setting if the game was more challenging that way. I wish they had a separate difficulty setting because there is just no challenge here.

 

Pretty much exactly what I expected from the KYC review that I based my purchasing decision on. I must admit that I played this a little longer than I should have because I was very close to beating the second boss and I still had another hour or so of gaming time in train this morning, so since my next game is on PS3 I just played some more Oreshika in train. I did manage to beat the second boss in that timeframe, earning me a final sixth trophy in the process. The fight was a joke, I could have and actually did beat the second boss like eight times in a row when the game forced me to flee from the battle and twelve months of training later the boss didn't stand a chance against me. When you can only challenge a boss once every twelve months, it's very annoying when a game forces you to abandon the fight.

 

Overall, I'd say I'm fairly happy with the game. If it wasn't for the difficulty this would probably be the best game so far but for now I'll leave it at a gold rating which may or may not change in my summary at the end of the month. I'm really looking forward to Child of Light.

 

Rating: 

 

Next game: Child of Light (PS3)

[Edunstar84]

Game #5 - First Impression

 

Playtime: 1 hour

Trophies: 1/55

 

This game is so cool. I mean I only played an hour, which isn't much in JRPG land. Just imagine if the Legend of Heroes and Persona series had a baby, Tokyo Xanadu ex+ would be the result. The game is your typical JRPG with very standard, generic characters. You play as Kou, a seemingly normal high school student. I say seemingly because I'm sure he has a special power that will awaken in the next couple of hours of playtime. The cast includes his childhood female friend, who has a secret crush on him (I'm assuming, I haven't gotten too far yet), a guy best friend Kou always jokes with, the elementary friend who moved, and now has come back, etc. So yeah, pretty much standard. And what I love about.....OMG! Student President Towa is that YOU! Legal loli for the winnnnnn....

 

Ermm...where was I? Oh yes. I haven't gotten too far to sample the gameplay, but you spend your days using your free time doing whatever you want, and you also have to work. The menu system is pretty advanced. You have tabs to keep track of some of the students in the high school, which includes their profiles. You can also keep track of the books you read, and I'm pretty sure there's a trophy for it. There's a lot of minute things you need to keep in mind, which might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I love doing things like that. For me, it helps create an engrossing story and world. Can't wait to play more. 

[PerryToxteth]

 

 

 

Edited November 16, 2018 by PerryToxteth

[PerryToxteth]

KYC 8

Game No. 4

Pic-a-Pix Color

 

Playing Time: 5 hours

Trophies Earned: 16/25 (64% C ranking)

Final Thoughts: I wasn't sure what to expect of this game, and given its price point and subpar graphics (see above), I was pretty skeptical. But was I ever wrong! This game is incredible fun and is seriously addicting!

  I first got interested in this when a recent Artifex Mundi title had a similar game in it to unlock a clue. Unfortunately, in that game the instructions were absolutely shitty and I felt pretty frustrated. But just as I solved it, I realized the premise of the game could be a fun mental challenge.

Well, one month later, and with PROPER instructions, I have a pretty serious addiction to this game, and they better come out with more! Honestly, it's not complicated. Your goal is to paint a picture on a grid using coded numbers listed in the horizontal and vertical columns. The numbers indicate how many of the specific color's titles will be in a row together (so a red 3 means somewhere in that column, three red titles will be next to one another). By lining up the numbers to correspond horizontally and vertically, you begin to solve the puzzle. Here's an example below:

 

 

 Essentially, this is a logic puzzle just like Sudoku. One move, will lead to another move, etc., etc. Unlike Sudoku, this is more trial and error based. In Sudoku, one wrong move written in pen, and you're basically fucked. 

  The game starts with small 5x5 puzzles for beginners and they get large enough for 20x20 for experts. I was finishing the 5x5s and 10x10s in under 5 minutes, but the bigger ones usually take 10-15 minutes. There are a few time-specific trophies, but don't panic. You will find some easy puzzles to finish in the allotted time.

  This game will take me probably 15 hours to finish but I'm really enjoying it. Evidently, word has leaked to Trophy Whores that this is an easy plat because people are finishing it an hour-plus and the platinum completion rate is in this high 60s. It can be easy and cheap if you just want to cheat on the internet and look up the solutions. But why? The regular gameplay is so much fun!!

  This one is a huge winner! Especially when you just want to play for a half hour or so. !

 

Next Up: 11-11 Memories Retold

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #5 - Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star - Preview

 

 

Oh look it's another anime game. Since I'm going to start this up in a bit, I'll get the preview out of the way. I've not watched any of the anime (I think there are several in the Fate universe). As such I don't really know what to expect. So much so that I thought this was a pure hack-and-slash game when I bought this. Turns out it's not quite that, but not too far off either. It seems to be more among the lines of a musou game.

 

Musou games have been hit or miss for me. I liked Samurai Warriors 4 and Arslan: The Warriors of Legend, while the handful Dynasty Warriors/ Warriors Orochi games I've played were just ok. Therefore I'm somewhat optimistic as I seem to enjoy the spin-offs and random genre entries more.

 

 

 

On a different note, I've gone back to Yomawari recently and for every time I start to enjoy it more, the game throws me a curve ball.

Spoiler

There is an event where you come across chickens that you need to escort back to a coop, so that you get an item reward. There are 5 in total and they are scattered about the western part of town. You have to catch them while avoiding all the different enemies in the area and on the way, and if you die the event starts over. So I was heading back to the coop with 3 chickens in tow, hid in a hiding spot, got out and suddenly there were only 2. I thought oh they probably just rendered ontop of each other and it just looks like there are less than before. So I pick u the forth chicken and search for the last one. Suddenly I only have 2 chickens in tow again. I decide to take them to the coop and sure enough, out of the four I should have had, 2 evaporated. Gotta go fetch them all again... FML

 

[MarkusT1992]

Game #4: Kona (Final Day)

 

 

Kona is best described as a detective walking sim with little survival elements.

The game starts with you driving to a village somewhere in Canada. Soon you reach a locked bridge so we have to look around to find a way to move on. After that's done we drive a bit more before having an accident. Again we have to look around to find snow chains for your car to get moving again. At this part we are introduced to the survival elements of the game. Being set in a snowy, cold region we have to stay warm. For that we can make fire by having three objects and a fireplace. Getting to cold will turn the screen blurry and I guess we will eventually faint. We also have a health bar and a sanity bar which should also stay up.

When we finally reach our destination, a general store, the game starts for real. We were supposed to meet with our client but that's not what happened. Instead we find his body and now have to investigate his death.

 

Here the game turns into an open game where we can go whereever we want. Looking around the general store we find a lot of things like some items to use and various pieces of paper with information about the region we are in or events that happened. The items include alcohol, cigarettes, matches but also some weapons like a crowbar, a pistol or a hammer.

After looking around in the general store we can go where we want or follow a clue we found in the store.

To get around the map we have two options: First use the car or second, walking. Although driving would be faster to get around I decided to walk. That's mostly because there is a trophy for not using any vehicle after reaching the general store.

In one of the houses I explored around the town I found a frozen person. Getting near started some kind of vision that showed me some things that happened earlier.

 

Also I haven't really played much of Kona I liked what I saw so far. I like exploring villages and finding stuff to read. Did I mention that you don't have any quest markers or similar things that show you where you should go next? No? Well you have none. All you have is a map that at least shows your current position. The rest has to be done alone. Reading in your notes to find information on where you should go, looking on the map to know in which direction you should go. Initially the map was blank but after finding a piece of paper the character noted the houses and who lived there on the map. I imaging that I can add even more to the map by finding other relevant information. You also have a camera to take pictures of important things or anything else. But you only have a set amount of photo paper and have to find more if you run out.

Like I already said I like exploring and discovering little things. I don't know how long the game is but I guess it's not that long to finish the story seeing that there are 4 trophies for not doing stuff during your playthrough. Of yourse you can combine all 4 of them.

 

Time played: Only like 1h 45min due to little time

Trophies: 4/36

Rating: (so far)

[Kevvik]

Game #6: White Day: A Labyrinth Named School

 

Initial Impressions

Time played: 5 hrs

 

White Day is a HD remastering of a 2001 Korean horror game which was well received in the day. The current version has more competition now than there was then in the genre but still does a decent job of maintaining that creepy Asian horror atmosphere.

 

You play a transfer student (don't you always) named Hee-Min Lee who sort of falls for a girl at school. Entering the school in the dead of night to bring candy to the girl (along with the diary she leaves behind in the opening scene) in anticipation of the holiday, White Day, he stumbles into an otherworldly nightmare as he is trapped in the school with a variety of ghosts and a murderous janitor. Also in the school is the object of his affections and two other girls. The two girls seem unnerved by what is going on but So-Young acts a little more mysteriously. What is her role in what is happening? Interacting with the girls is a left or right dialogue choice which may impact how the story plays out as there are multiple endings.

 

You have health similar to some old school shooters in that your health isn't registered but damage sustained is (as a bloody mess surrounding the outer edges of the screen growing further in as you take damage. I started on Easy to get the hang of the game (there's also a Very Easy difficulty) but have still died a few times (ok, 10 so far, mostly at one timed battle sequence). You work your way through the school, solving environmental puzzles (find key, unlock door, find lore to direct how to open safes, etc) along the way while avoiding the janitor who will beat you to death with a cricket bat if he can (apparently, he's very nice during the day according to one of the girls).  There are items which heal you (soy milk, yuck) and apparently your heart beat can mess with you as well but I haven't noticed at this difficulty level. 

 

There are also ghosts, some harmless that you just see before they vanish, others which engage and can harm you. Typical creepy Asian fare here but done to good effect, especially when playing in the dark.  You can also collect documents of ghost stories, again fairly expectable content. Apparently some ghosts are only shown in higher difficulty levels and in the correct circumstances as trophies require you to see all ghosts and collect all stories.  Should be cool, I have enjoyed those I've come across so far.  I've worked through the two main buildings of the school so far, the totems to open the new areas coming after timed mini-boss fights (the time is generous in Easy mode and there are 5 difficulty levels with Hell mode locked at the start) which involve running around the building to accomplish things before directly engaging the mini-boss and engaging in a small QTE. The design is neat and it works well.

 

All in all, I'm enjoying White Day so far and hopefully will continue to do so as I work my way through the story which is maintaining a good level of intrigue thus far.

 

Trophies earned: 7/43, 10% for D rank

Score so far: 8/10

[Arctic Cress]

Game #3 - Gal*Gun 2

Trophies: 18/37 (42% - C)

Playtime: 3 hours

 

An accidental backspace ate my entire review as I was just finishing it, and I don't feel like typing all of it again, so I'll make this a bit shorter than usual.

 

You play as an unnamed male student in high school. Like the first game, you meet an angel who tasks you with helping get rid of the demons possessing girls in the school by shooting them with ecstasy shots and sucking up the demons into your gun. Unlike the first game, Gal*Gun 2 ditches some of the on-rails system by instead placing you in predetermined parts of an area without actually moving around, making the game much easier as you can take your time before moving to a new place and suck up any loose mini-demons or uncover those pink plushie things that give you more points. The game is easier but it feels like there's no challenge sometime and I think it makes it a weaker game overall.

 

Gal*Gun 2 also has Defense and Search missions, which are basically what they say on the tin. Defense missions have you defending girls from the demons, usually by shooting them off and then sucking them into your gun. If they all hit zero HP than the mission is failed. Search missions have you pixel hunting through a game stage looking for various items. There are girls patrolling in these areas that, if you are discovered, summon multiple demon-possessed girls to waste your time. These missions are timed, so it's imperative to dispatch the patrollers quickly and find the items fast. The game will usually point to where the items are when there's no one around to disturb you, so that helps.

 

I'm probably not going to play this much later on. I did like Double Peace a bit so I'll push this through to an ending but it's not exactly a high priority of mine.

 

Starting completion: 70.74%

Current completion: 70.03%

Difference: -0.71%

Dynasty Warriors 9: 11/44 (17% - D)

SoulCalibur VI: 14/49 (27% - C)

Gal*Gun 2: 18/37 (42% - C)

 

Not much of a drop (-0.04%) due to Taiko moving up to a B and this game debuting with half of its list already obtained. Oh well. Hopefully as I play Yakuza Kiwami 2 over the weekend, the completion rate will take somewhat of a hit!

[SyIaris]

Crypt of the Necrodancer

Game #6 (16th-18th)

1-2 hours played

1/29  (-1.33%)

 

Man, if I'd known there were options to turn off the flashing and shaking, I would've started this a long time ago. Kudos for the seizure warning and all the settings. 

 

A roguelike where you have to move/fight in time with the beat is certainly interesting, though the time limit isn't really my thing. Mostly makes me want to go back to Dungeons of Dredmor.

While it seems like it could be really enjoyable, it's not one for me to play on anything but a good day. There's a lot of focus involved between keeping the beat and remembering how to handle different enemies, but hey - it's supposed to be a 10/10 and I'm sure I didn't hit the hard stuff yet.

 

Think I'll leave it here and see if I can stand the mind-numbing boredom of FFXV Comrades for a couple days.

 

That does finalize my order, though. Be back in a few days with Song of the Deep. 

Spoiler

Black Mirror

Destroy All Humans!

Lords of the Fallen

InFamous: Second Son

Plague Inc: Evolved

Crypt of the Necrodancer

Song of the Deep

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc

Yooka-Laylee

The Witcher 3

 

Edited November 17, 2018 by SyIaris

[DamagingRob]

9 hours ago, voodoo_eyes said:

There is an event where you come across chickens that you need to escort back to a coop, so that you get an item reward. There are 5 in total and they are scattered about the western part of town. You have to catch them while avoiding all the different enemies in the area and on the way, and if you die the event starts over. So I was heading back to the coop with 3 chickens in tow, hid in a hiding spot, got out and suddenly there were only 2. I thought oh they probably just rendered ontop of each other and it just looks like there are less than before. So I pick u the forth chicken and search for the last one. Suddenly I only have 2 chickens in tow again. I decide to take them to the coop and sure enough, out of the four I should have had, 2 evaporated. Gotta go fetch them all again... FML

Spoiler

The little shits will lose interest and stop following you every so often.. Care to join me in my irrational hatred of video game chickens?

 

Game #6

Homefront: The Revolution- Day 1

 

I played the original Homefront a very long time ago, and this isn't quite what I expected. The original was a very gritty FPS, and this is more of an open world Far Cry ripoff. But it's fun, so far. 

 

Story is similar to the original. North Korea has kicked our ass, and taken over. You play as a resistance fighter, with the intention of fighting back. Right at the beginning, though, it looks like you'll be executed before even getting started. Only to be saved by Walker (Texas Ranger). Who is injured saving you, then captured, and the goal now is to save him from execution. I can't say the story has been anything amazing, with mostly unlikable characters, and a mute protagonist.. 

 

Thankfully, the gameplay has been better. You can carry two different guns at a time, and new ones can be bought from shops found in safe houses. You'll earn money for them from selling items you find, and completing story missions/side activities. Enemies are found all over, and a bar shows if they can see you. When the bar fully expands, they will shoot and come after you. You can then get into a firefight, or run and hide. Though when your hiding spots are dumpsters and outhouses, I'd suggest taking them on.

 

There are different tools you can buy or craft. Molotovs, pipe bombs, one that hacks open doors, and firecrackers used to distract enemies. And then there are RC cars, which can do all of these things. Or you attach one to the car? Haven't really experimented with them yet, as I unlocked them near the end of my session. 

 

Various activities can be completed, which will lower the enemy's hold over an area. Saving citizens from execution, taking out loud speakers, killing an enemy commander, finding radios and other collectibles, etc. The lower it is, the more the citizens will rise up. Fully take over an area, and you'll find them beating up and killing enemies. You can also open up your map and fast travel to any safe house. And there are motorbikes for faster normal travel. 

 

Not much more to say, other than I was impressed by the level of detail. I didn't think it would look as good as it does, and the city feels very alive. With all the patches, it seems to run pretty well now, too. Though I did have a slight issue with a trophy already.. Had to kill the Goliath a second time for the King David trophy to pop. 

 

Time played: 5-6 hours? 

Trophy progress: 12/75 for 14% and a C rank.

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

 

Assassin's Creed Odyssey

Bonus game #2

Total playtime: around eighty hours

Did the game lower my completion percentage? Yes.

 

... Yes, even though I've obtained trophies now in AC Odyssey during November, it still lowered my completion percentage. At the start of the month, the only unobtained trophies for me were three DLC trophies, which I obtained today. However, fifteen more trophies have since been added that can't be obtained yet. Some of them might be obtainable by the end of November, but I doubt it'll be enough to get me back to the 95% completion in Odyssey I had at the start of the month.

 

I liked Odyssey a lot, but the first new trophy missions have been swing and a miss for me. The first questline revolved around annoying actors (in-game actors), the first cyclops fight was fun but made me question exactly how much of the Assassin's Creed series is still supposed to be real (yes there's stuff in the game like Meduas and the minotaur, but if you've done those then you know those are related to precursor stuff, which were already established in previous entries. The cyclops just seems to be there), and the second questline had way too much bouncing back and forth between points on the map that were not close to fast travel points (and the most annoying voice actress in the game has a prominent role in this questline).

 

I hope Ubisoft steps it up a notch for the big DLCs, Legends Of The First Blade being the first to be released, probably soon.

Edited November 17, 2018 by Agent 47

[voodoo_eyes]

23 minutes ago, DamagingRob said:

  Hide contents

The little shits will lose interest and stop following you every so often.. Care to join me in my irrational hatred of video game chickens?

 

 

Spoiler

it's still odd though, as I ended up walking around the school area looking for them, which is where I was when the poor excuses for a bird disappeared. If somehow they stopped following while the area was covered by foliage, well then there would've been no chance for me to ever find them fecking things again lol.

 

[xFalionx]

Game #4: Child of Light (PS3)

1st day

Total playtime: about 1 hour

 

Child of Light is an artistic western JRPG about a little princess that one day wakes up in a world inhabited by creatures of darkness and is now trying to find a way to get back to her parents. Since this game is probably rather short and mostly about watching the story unfold, I won't go into more detail than that. An interesting thing to mention is that the story is told as a giant poem and so far all conversations between the protagonist and other creatures of the world have also taken place in the form of rhymes. 

 

The gameplay is fairly simple. You control both your character and her glowing firefly companion to solve simple puzzles in a metroidvania-like 2D puzzle platformer world. These puzzles usually just involve pushing around crates to reach certain places, shining light or casting shadows on certain things using your companion and are generally very easy. There are also enemies that can be stunned using your companion and approached in order to initiate the turn-based battle system. It's pretty standard but the time until your and your enemies' turns is displayed as a timeline at the bottom. If you hit them while they are attacking, they are interrupted and the same goes for you. Because of this, one of the main combat mechanics is controlling your companion to slow down an enemy at a time in order to time their attack windows so that you attack them while they are in the middle of an attack and to try and stop them from interrupting you. This can get quite hectic since this is a real time mechanic and you can only slow down one out of up to three enemies for a certain time since the ability has to be recharged over time. Even on the higher difficulty normal enemies were no real problem but the first boss was pretty challenging. Of course, being a JRPG, this game has a level system as well as a skill tree to invest points into but they are pretty simple.

 

The art is beautiful and resembles a world drawn in water colors and the soundtrack also seems pretty good so far. By now I've just beaten the first boss and I definitely like the gameplay and the story so far. 

[PerryToxteth]

On 11/16/2018 at 1:11 AM, dmland12 said:

Game #5: Cities: Skylines

Trophies: 21/69 (20%)

Completion: 91.87% (-1.07%, -2.89% from start)

 

Cities: Skylines is a city-building game that draws heavy inspiration from the SimCity series of games.  I played a lot of SimCity 2000 and SimCity 3000 a long time ago, and this game has the same feel (and many similar mechanics) as those games.  I'd say this game managed to stay true to the formula that SimCity laid out two decades ago, as well as improve on it.  Overall, I really liked it.  It was familiar and brought back some nostalgia. 

 

If you haven't played SimCity (and there's a good chance of this since the series has been mostly dead since SimCity 4 was released in 2003), the basics aren't hard to grasp.  You start out with an empty map and you'll need to build roads and decide where the buildings will be built.  Instead of just placing down most buildings individually, you place a "zone" down where you want them to be built.  Then, after a while the buildings will be constructed.  You need to make sure that there's power and water, as well as city services (hospitals, schools, police, fire stations, etc.).  It gets a little more complicated than that, and you do have a budget you'll need to watch.  But, since you start off small and unlock additional buildings and options as you grow, I don't think it's that steep of a learning curve.

 

There's a lot of flexibility in how you design your city and you can get in fairly close and look at the details of an individual building, follow a fire truck responding to a fire, or watch people going about their daily business.  It's nice to just look around and see how things are going sometimes.  But, thankfully, you don't really have the option or the need to micromanage things at that level.

 

Have a quick look around my city in the video below for an idea of what this game looks like and what you can build.  I was pretty happy with how my city turned out so far.

 

 

 

 

Man, you really aged me. 

I remember grabbing SimCity 2000 when it was released. A quick internet search tells me that was 25 years ago!

That sounds like a long time ago but believe me, in my head, that seems like yesterday.

Anyways, thanks for the review and the video! I can't believe how good the game looks and I like the nighttime aspect. I'll definitely grab this at some point. 

 

How easy is it to balance the budget? That was one problem with the original SimCity game was sitting around waiting for funds to collect. Until you discovered the cheat.., BTW, how did easter eggs get out pre-internet? 

[voodoo_eyes]

4 hours ago, xFalionx said:

Game #4: Child of Light (PS3)

1st day

Total playtime: about 1 hour

 

The art is beautiful and resembles a world drawn in water colors and the soundtrack also seems pretty good so far. By now I've just beaten the first boss and I definitely like the gameplay and the story so far. 

 

I really liked the art style as well as the music. Couldn't stand the combat though.

 

 

 

 

On a different note. I ended up wrapping up Burning Blood and got the plat.

Edited November 17, 2018 by voodoo_eyes

[dmland12]

1 hour ago, PerryToxteth said:

 

Man, you really aged me. 

I remember grabbing SimCity 2000 when it was released. A quick internet search tells me that was 25 years ago!

That sounds like a long time ago but believe me, in my head, that seems like yesterday.

Anyways, thanks for the review and the video! I can't believe how good the game looks and I like the nighttime aspect. I'll definitely grab this at some point. 

 

How easy is it to balance the budget? That was one problem with the original SimCity game was sitting around waiting for funds to collect. Until you discovered the cheat.., BTW, how did easter eggs get out pre-internet? 

 

Sorry about that.  Though, I know what you mean! 

 

Ah, yeah, the cheat codes.  I didn't really use them much, but still knew about them.  In my case, I had a guide book for the game (this one: https://www.amazon.com/Official-Simcity-Planning-Commission-Handbook/dp/0078819504 or this one: https://www.amazon.com/SimCity-2000-Politics-Planning-Revised/dp/0761500758, I'm not sure) and it probably had all of that in it too.  So, I guess the cheats probably spread from that plus word of mouth.

 

The budget is overall easier to manage in Cities: Skylines.  At the beginning, you'll want to skimp on your city services (police, schools, etc.), if you don't want to wait so long for more money.  But, after you get past that, the money starts flowing in quickly.  If you have experience in SimCity games, it shouldn't be too difficult.  The police and fire stations are also not so all-or-nothing like in SimCity.  So, you can get away with having less coverage without much trouble.  There's also some other nice things that make it easier from a money perspective: you get partial refunds from bulldozing, and placing down zones is free.  So, overall, it's quicker to build up your city than the old SimCity games, if you have a general idea of what to do.

 

I really liked the look at night too.  It is a bit harder to see what you're doing, though, as far as placing roads and zones.  There's an option to have day-only, night-only, or a day-night cycle.  It looks like you can change this whenever you want, though I haven't actually tried.  I just went with the default: the cycle.

 

One thing I should have mentioned in my review: there's currently one trophy that's buggy: Frenetic Player.  They seem to still be updating the game: it looks like this broke on the last update.  So, hopefully, they'll fix it in the next.

 

 

Edited November 17, 2018 by dmland12

[SolarCat02]

Mages of Mystralia

 

So, with Thanksgiving coming up I am going to do my review now to make sure I have time for my other two games. 

 

Overall, I really like it. So far I worked my way up to the third giant boss fight, which involved a giant ice lizard. This battle is more involved than the others simply because it requires me to move around more and at certain points to avoid random parts of the small battle arena. As a result I haven't beaten him yet because I haven't had a chance to try without a baby on my lap. It's easily doable, and I already know exactly what I have to do, just not doable while distracted because some of the cues don't give a lot of reaction time!

 

It's a fun little game, with some puzzles about how to use your spells and runes to light fires and others based on combat including solving the boss fight mechanics. The talking spellbook agrees with my assessment of Mentor so his incompetence is intentional and called out as bad behavior, which means I am now okay with it. It's something I can also generally play while snuggling with the baby (aside from certain boss fights) without having to worry about her learning or seeing anything she shouldn't. 

 

I have started learning the basics of making your own spells with runes and it's going to be a lot of fun once I figure out how to do that. I also have enough orbs to buy a second wand once I finish the area I am in. I am definitely going to be finishing this one and enjoying it (although I want to finish The Talos Principle first because I have a thing for puzzle games). This spell crafting appears to be the only crafting in this RPG, but I am okay with that. It's clear they put a lot of thought into it to give it a lot of depth. 

 

The cut scene art with her boxier less cartoon face against the cartoon backdrop is still a bit jarring, but not a huge deal, just a weird art choice. 

 

Overall it's a cute little game with more depth than is apparent at first glance, and I would recommend it to fans of fantasy RPGs who want something relaxing rather than quick button mashing, but still requiring thought to progress. The game does make you feel clever once you sort out certain ones of the puzzles. 

[ImBossy83]

Final thoughts Game #2

Mass effect 2

Apparently i forgot to write my final thoughts on Mass Effect 2 so I'm going to do a short summary of my thoughts. In one sentence: i didn't like it. The story evolves nicely and the actual gameplay mechanics like the shooting and movement are better than Mass Effect 1 but the mission Design feels totally stale. Before i went on the first Planet i went around and talked to my crew. They all gave me some things that they needed like better seasoning or this one extremely rare piece of equipment. And all i had to do was buy this stuff at a Terminal. No real search, actually no quest at all. The same goes for the recruitment of other ship members. This one guy i stumbled upon when i went on the next Planet. There was a short dialogue an whoop's he was part of my Crew. I will give this game another chance because i know i once liked it so i assume that it's just the beginning that has these issues but for now i was happy to move on. 

 

Playtime:  5 hours
Trophies: 6/59 Rank E
Enjoyment: 7/10

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

My planning for the day

 

So, my original plan yesterday was get through two hours of additional Assassin's Creed Odyssey missions first, then go on to another KYC game. However, my brother-in-law suddenly dropped by and what ended up happening was I made him play two VR games, Accounting+ and then Statik, and by the time he was gone (after dinner) my wife wanted to watch one of those corny Netflix christmas movies, so I galantly granted her the screen and went on to play Pokémon myself.

 

Today, I should have most of the day for myself, and I've been thinking about what to play. Well, I know what I'll start with:

 

 

I know we're only supposed to play games we obtained before the start of the event (I remember that being one of the earlier rolules, anyway), but I'm substituting Robinson: The Journey with Astro Bot. Robinson has a very high risk of VR-sickness so I'm not willing to play it right now.

 

I loved the idea of Astro Bot when I found out about it as an upcoming game - it's a whole game based on the platforming section of The Playroom VR, which I thought was fantastic. But somehow, I forgot to buy it until the Black Friday sale showed it to me again.

 

 

 

Astro Bot is VR so I doubt I'll play it for more than an hour, two tops. After that, I want to move on to a non-VR game, and the two I have still planned for this event are Valley and SOMA. Both were bought at the same time, about half a year ago, and I checked out the first minutes (along with another bought game, to see which I'd play first, and that other game won, but I don't recall which game that was) but didn't obtain any trophies yet.

 

So, anyone want to recommend either? I'm leaning towards Valley since HowLongToBeat says I could complete the story in one sitting today, but I still might go for SOMA instead.

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

 

Accounting+

VR bonus game #1

Total playtime: around two and a half hours

 

Let my brother-in-law play Accounting+ (and Statik) yesterday, and turns out there are new trophies for Accounting+.

 

Did them all today, the trophy names make it clear what needs to be done (one trick shot in almost each regular level while going in), it's not a new level or something like that. It was fun though, and I still recommend this game to anyone who will listen. It's funny, it's stupid, and it's funny because it's stupid. I'll buy Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality if it's ever a fitting price (it's from the same people).

[voodoo_eyes]

2 hours ago, Agent 47 said:

My planning for the day

 

So, my original plan yesterday was get through two hours of additional Assassin's Creed Odyssey missions first, then go on to another KYC game. However, my brother-in-law suddenly dropped by and what ended up happening was I made him play two VR games, Accounting+ and then Statik, and by the time he was gone (after dinner) my wife wanted to watch one of those corny Netflix christmas movies, so I galantly granted her the screen and went on to play Pokémon myself.

 

Today, I should have most of the day for myself, and I've been thinking about what to play. Well, I know what I'll start with:

 

 

I know we're only supposed to play games we obtained before the start of the event (I remember that being one of the earlier rolules, anyway), but I'm substituting Robinson: The Journey with Astro Bot. Robinson has a very high risk of VR-sickness so I'm not willing to play it right now.

 

I loved the idea of Astro Bot when I found out about it as an upcoming game - it's a whole game based on the platforming section of The Playroom VR, which I thought was fantastic. But somehow, I forgot to buy it until the Black Friday sale showed it to me again.

 

 

 

Astro Bot is VR so I doubt I'll play it for more than an hour, two tops. After that, I want to move on to a non-VR game, and the two I have still planned for this event are Valley and SOMA. Both were bought at the same time, about half a year ago, and I checked out the first minutes (along with another bought game, to see which I'd play first, and that other game won, but I don't recall which game that was) but didn't obtain any trophies yet.

 

So, anyone want to recommend either? I'm leaning towards Valley since HowLongToBeat says I could complete the story in one sitting today, but I still might go for SOMA instead.

 

Really depends. Soma is a story heavy game that has a somewhat slow pace to it. If you want to get the most out of it as you'll have to explore to get a bit of backstory on other characters. Valley is the literally fast-paced exploration platformer sort of deal, that has a novelty factor to it, which imo wears off relatively quickly until you get a new suit upgrade. If you have a good amount of free time then Soma. Valley if you see yourself with little time to play as it's focus is on the gimmick while the story is kind of meh.

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

 

Astro Bot Rescue Mission

VR game #2

First Hour Review

Total playtime: about an hour

 

... Love it!

 

... Okay, I'll say a bit more. Astro Bot Rescue Mission is a VR platformer, a full game version of that one level in The Playroom VR.

 

It's bright, it's cheery, it's good platforming and fun bosses. Seems there's five worlds of four levels and a boss each, each regular level has eight bots (and one chameleon) to find, and each chameleon unlocks a challenge level. In my first hour of playing, I played through the first world (finding all chameleons and 29 out of 32 bots), got gold in the first challenge level, and messed around a bit in the space ship, which is an alternate take on the toy room in The Playroom VR.

 

It's a great game that's obviously had some devs devoted to the little things, it all works very well, and I wouldn't be surprised if I just decided to play through the entire main story later today (it doesn't seem to trigger any VR-sickness, so yay). The odds of this game getting as a final score from me are extremely high.

 

Next up:

@voodoo_eyes has convinced me that I should try SOMA right now, and keep Valley for some work days where I can't play much.