Popular Post jonesey46 Posted April 3 Author Popular Post Share Posted April 3 (edited) March 2024 Update Happy April everyone! Did you get fooled? and if you're from the UK, did you get fooled by our awful daylight savings system? Cause I certainly did! I forgot to change the clock in my car and somehow lost an entire hour on Monday. Anyway... Another month passes us by and I am now another year older. I celebrated my 31st birthday on the 31st of March which I was later informed was my champagne birthday, where you turn the age the date your birthday is on. Nothing changes, you just have some champagne at some point during the day. Which sucks if your birthday is any date below the 18th (or 21st in America). It's been a great month for me trophy wise. As per my previous post, my profile finally reached 90% completion, which is DEFINITELY the first time that has ever happened. I recently set myself a personal goal, to get my unearned trophies down to my lowest point since starting this trophy tracker spreadsheet, which was 1670 back in 2020. And, at time of writing, I'm only 71 trophies off. As I've said before, my free time to game is dwindling by the day, and so despite having quite a large backlog of unstarted games, most of them I REALLY want to play, I'm opting to finish off older games and clear them from my profile, to see some form of progress. There are some absolute bangers (or so I've heard) in this backlog though, so I'm desperate to start some new adventures soon! So, let's roll on the update! Starting with... Overcooked! All You Can Eat ( #317) Started the month of March off by finishing the campaign of Overcooked 2! and then I managed to convince my wife to do a load of pointless tasks with me so we could unlock the platinum! There are various trophies requiring 4 people but you can split your controller in half and control a character on either side, Brothers style. This was a bit of a mindfuck but we got used to it eventually. A pretty fun game in co-op and my wife and I had a great time, although, it does get a bit repetitive towards the end. Rollerdrome ( #314) I really wanted to like this game, but something about it just didn't gel with me. It's an arena shooter on roller skates with an emphasis on combos and points, you rack these up by killing dudes and looking stylish whilst doing it. It's a challenging game but I felt it's challenge was artificial. The game doesn't really offer much in the way of options. There are 4 weapons but all of them are perfectly capable of killing each type of enemy and the tricks you perform are all done by pressing one button and pointing the analog stick in one of eight directions. Once you've finished the first level, you've pretty much seen them all. Because of this, I gladly whacked on all of this games generous assist modes to quickly rush the platinum. No ragrets. Lies of P ( #315) Ah yes, this game. I'm still due to put a post up about this game and I promise it'll be my next post after this one. Basically, I loved this game and in early March I started my second playthrough on NG+ to clean up everything I had missed. I unlocked the platinum at the end of this playthrough and honestly? I could have quite happily done a third playthrough immediately. Rise of the Tomb Raider ( #318) With that personal goal I mentioned earlier in mind, I was looking through my profile to find a game I could work on that would make a pretty nice dent in those unearned trophies. This game has a total of 125 trophies because of its DLC which is utterly insane for a Lara Croft game. After finishing the story back in 2021 I had about 90+ trophies to unlock to get this to 100%. This involved me playing through the campaign again on Survivor difficulty, collecting all the guff in the open world post story, tackling this games horrendously boring score attack mode and then finishing each of its five DLCs. This pretty much took the entire month to finish, but it felt more like three. Since this was started before this year, I plan to do a full post on this soon and though there isn't yet an event for my PS4 backlog, akin to the PS3 Pension Plan, I've preemptively come up with the title PS401K for it. I don't know if that's clever or not, but I fucking love it. Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One Knocked this off the PS3 Pension Plan for two reasons; 1. I'm doing everything I can to avoid playing Pain, and 2. I wanted that stupidly long title off the list. This was another game-shared title from way back in the early days of PSN when I used to hand out my e-mail address and password to strangers on the internet, and they'd do the same. I downloaded this off someone's account, played the intro and then never went back to it. I purchased it all for myself recently and completed the entire thing over two sessions. A very short game but you know what? It's actually pretty fun, although it's humour is pretty out-dated. It's a turn based RPG, based on the titular internet comic (which I've never read by the way). There's only two main areas in the game for you to explore and fight enemies, so even keeping the trophies in mind, this game does not have a lot of content. I am NOT complaining though because a quick completion for the Pension Plan is a welcome boon. This will be the next post after Lies of P. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chornobyl ( #316) The Stalker games are ones I've always wanted to play, being a big fan of the Metro series. And would you know it, the whole trilogy shadow dropped on PSN after some Microsoft press conference. They made a mistake though and put the whole trilogy up for the price of one game. This was quickly corrected but I managed to snatch the trilogy up at the discounted price. Intrigued, I jumped in to the first game straight away and had an absolute blast. Visually, these games are very dated but mechanically? So ahead of their time and still hold up to this day. Despite some frequent crashes towards the end of my playthrough, I would whole-heartedly recommend these games to anyone. I'm almost certainly going to play the other two soon. Pain Holy shit! I actually played it and made some progress. You know what? I don't even dislike this game, I'm just finding it very intimidating. I've set some time aside this month to play it at least once a week. I'm getting there, but VERY slowly. I got one of the grindier trophies out of the way and tackled two trophies from the Clown Toss mini game where, you guessed it, you toss a clown. Crash Commando This game is the next in line on the Pension Plan after Pain. I installed it to have it ready to go and just thought I'd refresh my memory on it, I mean, it has been fifteen years. Doing this unlocked three simple trophies and I have no plan to return to this before Pain is finished. A lot of this will need to be self boosted using my two PS3s. It's one of those side-scroller party games where you kill people and capture objectives. The best way to describe it, is 2D Team Fortress 2 without the classes. This was another game-sharer. Titan Souls Alright, I'm out of control, I'm digging up so many old games on my profile and compelling myself to finish them off, with barely any time to do so. Though, I was feeling so burned out with Tomb Raider at this point that I just needed something else to play. Why this? I have no idea. I started it in 2021 on my Vita but dropped it because of its AWFUL loading times. I've always wanted to go back to it though because last year, I played and loved Death's Door, and Titan Souls is that studios first game. This time I was playing on PS5 and the load screens were much more bearable. Titan Souls is a boss rush game where both you and the bosses die in one hit. An interesting concept but not all that great in practice. It requires a lot of trial and error and I guess that's the point but it felt more frustrating than rewarding. I beat the story mode over two sessions and plan to go back to get the platinum soon. Fallout 76 And finally, the best birthday present a man could ever hope for, new content for a game I love. I am not being sarcastic, I actually love this game. Three new trophies were added to the ongoing Atlantic City DLC and I had a blast jumping back into this game. I'm honestly so down for whatever content gets released for this. And that's March! I hope you all had a great month! And I look forward to returning here soon with my Lies of P post. Thanks for reading as always! Edited April 3 by jonesey46 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YaManSmevz Posted April 3 Share Posted April 3 12 hours ago, jonesey46 said: It's been a great month for me trophy wise. As per my previous post, my profile finally reached 90% completion, which is DEFINITELY the first time that has ever happened. I recently set myself a personal goal, to get my unearned trophies down to my lowest point since starting this trophy tracker spreadsheet, which was 1670 back in 2020. And, at time of writing, I'm only 71 trophies off. I know the feeling man... you hit a percentage you feel proud of, then you start playing new games and before you know it you're back down a few rungs😂 Also 71 trophies away from the current goal? You're gonna do some serious damage this month homie, I can feel it👊 12 hours ago, jonesey46 said: Rollerdrome ( #314) I really wanted to like this game, but something about it just didn't gel with me. It's an arena shooter on roller skates with an emphasis on combos and points, you rack these up by killing dudes and looking stylish whilst doing it. It's a challenging game but I felt it's challenge was artificial. The game doesn't really offer much in the way of options. There are 4 weapons but all of them are perfectly capable of killing each type of enemy and the tricks you perform are all done by pressing one button and pointing the analog stick in one of eight directions. Once you've finished the first level, you've pretty much seen them all. Because of this, I gladly whacked on all of this games generous assist modes to quickly rush the platinum. No ragrets. Noooooo this game looked so cool, I've been so excited to play it but this is the second "meh" reception I've come across. And to think I bought it before it went for free like a sucker😂😭 12 hours ago, jonesey46 said: Lies of P ( #315) Ah yes, this game. I'm still due to put a post up about this game and I promise it'll be my next post after this one. Basically, I loved this game and in early March I started my second playthrough on NG+ to clean up everything I had missed. I unlocked the platinum at the end of this playthrough and honestly? I could have quite happily done a third playthrough immediately. I think this one may have to go onto my wishlist... between you and Copa, I've been getting mad fomo for this one! 12 hours ago, jonesey46 said: I hope you all had a great month! And I look forward to returning here soon with my Lies of P post. Thanks for reading as always! Looks like the fomo is only gonna get wirse🤣 Great post, my dude👊 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post jonesey46 Posted April 9 Author Popular Post Share Posted April 9 (edited) "🎵 Close your eyes..." Platinum #315 - Lies of P Pinnochio! You know... the story about the wooden puppet who wants to become a real boy! If you haven't read it, you've at least seen the Disney adaptation. It's a great and timeless story that will be retold again and again long after we are all gone. But who would have thought this story would be retold through the medium of videogames? Especially a videogame that follows in the footsteps of Fromsoftware's incredible Souls series. Well, no one I imagine, but gosh darnit Korean developers Neowiz and Round8 pulled it off with flying colours. It's no secret that I'm a big fan of Fromsoftware's Souls series and its various spin offs, especially Bloodborne. Many developers have tried and failed to ape these games' success but they all seem to misunderstand what makes those games so good. Hell, even I'd struggle to tell you what it is, all I know is that From's games feel good to play and all have multiple moving parts that come together to make an unforgettable experience, and most of these Souls likes just don't have that. Enter Lies of P, a game developed by a complete newcomer to the genre. Aside from a few free to play MMO's and mobile games, these developers have barely done much of anything, until this game. Now, you might think it a little strange that a new developer takes on the Souls formula and does it with the story of Pinnochio. I mean, I thought it was weird as hell. When the game got announced and showed off at various shows, I was super skeptical. Firstly, why Pinnochio? And secondly, it's a souls like not made by From, so it'll probably be garbage. Well, I'm happy to announce that this game is not garbage at all, in fact I'd go as far to say... that it's a masterpiece. Our boy, standing in front of the main hub of the game. So what makes Lies of P so good? Well, most of From's Souls games tend to be greater than the sum of their parts, those multiple moving parts I mentioned earlier never fail to be ever present in their titles and they always come together amazingly well. The thing is, Lies of P has all those moving parts too, and they're all fantastic, but only one of them really elevates it up to the level of From's quality, and that's the combat. Don't get me wrong, the world, story, characters and level design are all great, and the Pinnochio connection works surprisingly well. It's just none of those things really stack up against what Bloodborne or Elden Ring has on offer. The combat though? I'd argue it's better than all of From's Souls games, not including Sekiro. Firstly, Lies of P's combat is much more akin to Bloodborne than Dark Souls, but it borrows heavily from Sekiro too. Pinnochio, or P we'll call him (he never actually gets called Pinnochio in the game), carries a melee weapon in one hand and has a modified arm on the other, which is capable of various feats like handing out shock or fire damage, or using a grapple hook to close the gap between enemies. The weapons of Lies of P are all standard affair for a Souls-like, however, there is one key difference here. Every standard weapon can be split into two parts, it's handle and it's head. The handle determines a weapons move set and the head determines its damage and scaling.. So, say you like a certain weapons move set, but it's damage scaling doesn't work for your build, you can pop the handle off, stick it on a more favourable weapon and voila! Now you have both the damage and the move set that works for you. This level of customisation is incredible and really opens up the game in terms of options. It also diversifies builds in a way that Souls games just don't allow for. How often did you find a really cool but utterly pointless weapon in the later stages Elden Ring? Too many. The Sekiro of it all comes from Lies of P's deflection system. Much like Sekiro, P is able to deflect almost every attack that comes at him. This is how you wear enemies down and make them vulnerable for visceral attacks, which do a huge amount of damage. The deflection system is what makes this games combat so much fun. There's a complicated risk/reward system at play here, perfect parries are hard to get and leave you open to damage but if you pull it off, it can be the most rewarding way of dealing damage. If you opt to just block attacks instead of deflecting, you can still wear enemies down but you will lose health for each hit, which you can then gain back by hitting the enemy, much like Bloodborne's rally system. Bloodborne is a great example here, because that game is famous for encouraging the player to be constantly aggressive and to never back away, although the option is still there. Lies of P does the exact same thing by locking you in place with its mechanics and giving you no other option but to engage with the enemy head on, or die. See, a lot of people like Souls games for their wide array of options. Sekiro is the outlier by only giving the player one way to deal with enemies. Lies of P brings the best of both worlds by offering a good range of weapons and move sets, but also locking you in to it's brutal core combat loop. I really vibe with this gameplay, it's why I love Doom Eternal so much. Sure, it's great to cheese bosses in Elden Ring and what not, but being given a set of tools and complicated problems to solve with said tools, often requiring complete mastery, is just so satisfying. At the start of the game, P wakes up in a train carriage and is contacted by the blue fairy, she encourages P to make his way to Hotel Krat, the grand hotel at the centre of the games setting, Krat. She claims it's the only safe place in the city from the puppet frenzy. Krat is a city that runs on automation, puppets handle all the manual labour leaving it's citizens to live in luxury and leisure. However, the puppets have gone crazy and started to kill people. P is a special puppet, created by Gepetto, he looks like a real boy, and not at all like an automaton. He also has the unique ability to lie, a trait specific to humans. What follows is a standard Souls adventure through various environments, killing enemies, gathering Ergo (this games version of souls), levelling up and taking down bosses, all with the goal of finding out what the hell is going on and how you can stop it. Lies of P is much more linear than the Souls series and has more of a level structure rather than a world structure. Every level has a start and end point, usually ending with a boss, and then its onto the next one. There are shortcuts, but they tend to stay within their levels and only serve to loop back to the checkpoint as you progress further into the level. You can revisit earlier areas but you can't seamlessly walk from one place to the next as most areas are split up with loading screens. The exploration aspect is generally this games weakest point and it's something I hope they can improve upon with a sequel. Fighting bosses in Lies of P is when the game is at its best. Every single boss in this game, with the exception of a couple in the early hours, is a feat in game design, visual design, animation, complexity and challenge. In particular, the final rush of three bosses at the end are some of the best bosses in gaming, period. I think one of this games best qualities, is that when you get hit or die, it's always your fault. So many times whilst playing the Souls games have I shouted "BULLSHIT" straight at the screen because lets face it, these games can be kind of bullshit. This does not happen in Lies of P. These bosses have been play tested and animated within an inch of their life. It takes a lot for a man to look inward and realise that yes, it is a skill issue, and the only solution, is to get gud. And get gud is exactly what you have to do! You will not see my nose grow when I say; this game is really hard. Most of the later bosses took me at minimum, two hours each. Most of that time is spent learning attack patterns and how to appropriately deal with them. By the time I'd learnt the bosses, I was finishing them off with very little mistakes. The crazy thing is, I never got frustrated. Okay, maybe I got a little frustrated here and there, but it was with myself, not the game. The game's challenge is so engaging that I spent all those failed attempts being utterly engrossed with the boss and it's mechanics. I've covered the basics without spoiling too much although I will say one more thing, Pinnochio is an incredible story and though this games story is not its strongest point, it still had somewhat of a profound effect on me. After finishing the game I watched both the Disney and Guillermo Del Toro adaptation, both of which have their merits, although the Disney version is a little yikes these days (why is everyone smoking!?, oh right, it was the 40's), with Guillermo's version being the obvious standout. If you have any interest in this story at all, I wholeheartedly recommend Jacob Gellar's video which touches on multiple adaptations as well as Lies of P itself, it really is a great video; As far as trophies go, it's pretty much what you'd come to expect from a standard Souls game. There are three endings but a handy save back up can allow you to get at least two, if not all three with some extra work, in one go. And then it's the ol' upgrade a weapon to it's max, defeat each boss etc. Nothing you've not seen before. I finished off the platinum in two playthroughs, and as I've mentioned before, if not for the mountain of games I need to get through, I could have happily gone straight back in for a third. I'm happily going to revisit this game in the future, along with the regular rotation of Souls playthrough's I do periodically. I just hope that my muscle memory kicks back in and I don't need to learn the bosses all over again! Arbitrary Rating 10/10 --- I almost gave it a 9 but honestly, I think it deserves the 10. Sure, it isn't perfect, but no game is. The 10, for me, represents a game that I can replay indefinitely and love, despite any flaws it may have. Thank you for reading. Edited April 9 by jonesey46 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Copanele Posted April 9 Share Posted April 9 1 hour ago, jonesey46 said: Platinum #315 - Lies of P Yeeees, finally!!!! Congrats for this one! I've been expecting for your review and I am SO glad it was just as enjoyable for you How ironic is that an unexperienced Korean company managed to nail from the first try what others failed with their Soulslikes (looking at you Lords of the Fallen...either version)! The only thing I can say is that I totally agree with everything there, damn, the experience was pretty much similar! Bosses especially, damn they were some tough customers! Especially the Green Monster, I had to use some items (cannon balls) to get him off my back. 1 hour ago, jonesey46 said: After finishing the game I watched both the Disney and Guillermo Del Toro adaptation, both of which have their merits, although the Disney version is a little yikes these days (why is everyone smoking!?, oh right, it was the 40's) He is Pinocchio FROM THE STREETS 😂 But yes, a fantastic game, I can't wait for the DLC/part 2/whatever will come next, because I really want more Lies of P! P.S. The bad ending really upset me more than it should've. Damn Koreans hitting all the strings in the P-Organ with that brutality. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonesey46 Posted April 9 Author Share Posted April 9 (edited) 39 minutes ago, Copanele said: Yeeees, finally!!!! Congrats for this one! I've been expecting for your review and I am SO glad it was just as enjoyable for you How ironic is that an unexperienced Korean company managed to nail from the first try what others failed with their Soulslikes (looking at you Lords of the Fallen...either version)! The only thing I can say is that I totally agree with everything there, damn, the experience was pretty much similar! Bosses especially, damn they were some tough customers! Especially the Green Monster, I had to use some items (cannon balls) to get him off my back. He is Pinocchio FROM THE STREETS 😂 But yes, a fantastic game, I can't wait for the DLC/part 2/whatever will come next, because I really want more Lies of P! P.S. The bad ending really upset me more than it should've. Damn Koreans hitting all the strings in the P-Organ with that brutality. Thanks man! Yeah the first Lords of the Fallen was pretty bad huh? Have you played the newer one? I'm not expecting P quality or anything but I thought it looked a little interesting at least. The swamp monster was a tough one for me, I found its second phase really challenging but I forgot to mention in my post how on my NG+ run I got through most of the bosses pretty quickly, some of them even first try. I guess the muscle memory was ingrained at that point. I think either the King of Puppets or Laxasia were the hardest for me and they just happen to by my faves! As well as Nameless of course. Although, Simon kicked my ass on NG+ big time and that ended up being the only time I summoned. I must have spent about 2 hours doing it, finally caved and summoned the spirit and did it first try 😅 Yeah the bad ending kind of threw me a little. At first I was like, "oh this actually doesn't seem so bad" and then it zoomed out and I was like "Oh..." 😂 So excited for the confirmed DLC and then I really hope they get to make the 'O' game they teased at the end. That would be so fucking sick dude. Edited April 9 by jonesey46 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Copanele Posted April 9 Share Posted April 9 2 hours ago, jonesey46 said: Thanks man! Yeah the first Lords of the Fallen was pretty bad huh? Have you played the newer one? I'm not expecting P quality or anything but I thought it looked a little interesting at least. The first one gets a DO NOT TOUCH stamp of disapproval from me the second one tried, it's way better but it still missed the mark from what I saw. I will play it at some point when it's discounted/offered via PS+ 2 hours ago, jonesey46 said: The swamp monster was a tough one for me, I found its second phase really challenging but I forgot to mention in my post how on my NG+ run I got through most of the bosses pretty quickly, some of them even first try. I guess the muscle memory was ingrained at that point. I think either the King of Puppets or Laxasia were the hardest for me and they just happen to by my faves! As well as Nameless of course. Although, Simon kicked my ass on NG+ big time and that ended up being the only time I summoned. I must have spent about 2 hours doing it, finally caved and summoned the spirit and did it first try 😅 Ok so I wasn't the only one who had issues with Simon 😂 I think it's because him having Elden Ring level of windups then a sudden SLAM, that gave me headaches in timing his parries. Laxasia was my bane though, took me too many tries in that stupid second phase. 2 hours ago, jonesey46 said: So excited for the confirmed DLC and then I really hope they get to make the 'O' game they teased at the end. That would be so fucking sick dude. YES! God that ending got me so hyped! I like how we're promised the sickest crossover ever. That ending really reminded me of American McGee's Alice for some reason 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonesey46 Posted April 9 Author Share Posted April 9 19 minutes ago, Copanele said: Ok so I wasn't the only one who had issues with Simon 😂 I think it's because him having Elden Ring level of windups then a sudden SLAM, that gave me headaches in timing his parries. Laxasia was my bane though, took me too many tries in that stupid second phase. Simon wasnt that much of an issue for me on NG but on NG+ I was getting nowhere trying to deflect his attacks so I eventually resorted to dodging all of his attacks and that worked fine for his first phase but goddamn his second phase is so unforgiving. Until I summoned that is😅. Gotta love getting to Laxasia's second phase for the first time and dying in 0.3 seconds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonesey46 Posted April 11 Author Share Posted April 11 (edited) PS3 Pension Plan Update #6 Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One Completion Time: 15 years, 1 month That title is a real mouthful isn't it? It's one of the main reasons I wanted to finish this game off and get it off the list. Right, 15 years ago I game-shared this title with a random stranger on the internet. I played the intro, unlocked one trophy for petting a cat, didn't think much of it, and abandoned it. I've never once read a Penny Arcade comic in my life, I have no attachment to this brand whatsoever. In order to play this game, I had to buy the bundle that includes Episode One and Two, because they are no longer listed individually. I have ZERO intention of playing Episode Two. That's not to say I didn't enjoy my time with this game. It's very short and has no way of outstaying its welcome. The only reason I played this was to clear the trophies as the game was already on my profile. Episode Two isn't, so I won't bother with it. Penny Arcade Adven... yada yada yada is an old school RPG using characters from the Penny Arcade web-comic. It follows you, a self-insert character which you can customise to your liking, after a giant robot destroys your home. Desperate for revenge, you team up with Penny Arcade legends Tycho and Gabe to take down the robot threat taking over the city. What follows is a short adventure across two large areas, where you fight enemies, look for clues and talk to various characters. The combat is turn based but in real time. What I mean by that is, you attack based on cool-downs, so it isn't strictly turn based but it feels like it, as both you and the enemies tend to attack sequentially, one after the other. Combat is okay, it's not exactly engaging. There are weaknesses and strengths to keep in mind when you fight certain enemies, but a lot of the time you just end up unloading all your attacks one by one anyway, so holding back attacks that enemies aren't weak to doesn't really have any benefits. Exploration is pretty basic. A lot of the time you're wandering around the open areas, walking up to enemies to start combat, opening up boxes and bins to get consumable items or finding characters to conversate with to further the story. The story itself is fine, of course this is only Episode One of a four part series, however they only got to Episode Two before cancelling the rest, probably due to low sales. I will say, the subject matter and humour is pretty outdated. I'm not sure what the web comic is like, and if it still has the same style and humour, but yeah, this game is VERY 2009. One of the biggest yikes for me was that an entire group of enemies are just homeless people. Nothing like beating societies most vulnerable people to death for just existing, am I right? There's some other bits and pieces in there that gave me pause but nothing that actually offended me or anything like that. It's just interesting how these things jump out at me these days and how fast things have changed in such a short period of time. Trophy wise, it's relatively easy but having a guide handy is a must. I had no interest in prolonging my time with this game so I consulted a guide from the start and kept it by my side throughout to make sure I was ticking all the boxes. I finished the game from start to 100% in two sessions. The only trophy that gave me any sort of a hard time was defeating the final boss without healing. There was a rhythm to the boss fight that I had to get used to for getting this trophy, so practice definitely helped, but honestly I felt like RNG did most of the work on that one. The rest are all simple, and they revolve around actions during combat, getting all collectibles and killing all enemies. I didn't need it but I did back up my save right before the final boss, just in case anything failed to unlock upon completion of the game, because there is no going back in once the credits roll. Overall, I did have a decent time with this, but only because it was so short. As I said before, I have no desire to continue the adventure into Episode Two. And I can safely say that it hasn't made me want to check out the web comic, like AT ALL. Arbitrary Rating 6/10 --- What's left on the PS3 Pension Plan: 1. Aliens vs Predator 2. Batman: Arkham City 3. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood 5. Crash Commando 6. Dead Rising 2 7. F.E.A.R. 3 8. Grand Theft Auto IV 9. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty 10. Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker 11. Need for Speed: Most Wanted 12. Pain 13. Red Dead Redemption 14. Super Stardust HD And now it's time to knuckle down on Pain once and for all. Having said that though, I have started a new playthrough of Red Dead Redemption. As I mentioned before, my friend became obsessed with RDR2 and desperately wants me to play it, so I agreed but having never finished the first one, I thought I'd at least go through the main story of that first. So yeah, I'm not currently working on it for the Pension Plan or anything but when I do get round to that, I'll be able to jump in post-story and get to work. Outside of that I've been banging out my recent PS5 titles with both Star Wars Jedi Survivor and Ghostrunner 2 both platinum'd and in the bag. I'm currently playing the Valhalla DLC for God of War Ragnarok and after that it's back to the PS5 version of Doom Eternal which I was playing before Christmas and dropped when I got a bunch of new games. I'm excited to finish Doom Eternal again actually, so I can review it on here and completely go back on everything I said about it back in 2020 and rightfully place it in the 10/10 section, where it belongs! Thanks for reading as always! Edited April 11 by jonesey46 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post jonesey46 Posted April 17 Author Popular Post Share Posted April 17 "JONAH!" Platinum #318 - Rise of the Tomb Raider Sequels are a great opportunity to expand and improve on everything that came before, unfortunately, a lot of sequels fall into the trap of "bigger is better". Thankfully, Rise of the Tomb Raider doesn't follow that trend and instead, offers a fresh and exciting adventure for gamings most recognisable icon. Although, it does still suffer from poor writing (and that follows into the third one too, seriously, hire better writers! Good writing is super important!), Rise manages to continue Lara's story with a natural progression that lands her in the Siberian wilderness, with only her previous survival experience to keep her alive. Right off the bat, Rise sticks the player in a heavily scripted sequence as Lara scales an icy mountain. I get the impression they wanted to emulate Uncharted 2 a little, as if the whole series wasn't just emulating Uncharted am I right? Although, to be fair, Tomb Raider DID come first. As mechanically boring as this section is, one thing is for sure, this game is absolutely stunning. This icy mountain set piece is a visual treat and for the most part these visuals keep up through out, but none are as impressive as this one here. Like they say, put your best stuff in the window. After Lara's horrendously bad luck catches up with her, we're transported to Syria, two weeks earlier. The story goes that Lara's dad was looking for "The Divine Source", a doo-dad that grants immortality. Before finding it though, he killed himself, or so it seems. Desperate for answers, Lara follows in her fathers footsteps to prove that he father was right. Hot on her tails is the super secret and super ancient organisation known as Trinity, conveniently giving Lara a bunch of dudes to shoot over the course of the game. What follows is an 8-10 hour adventure across the Siberian Wilderness looking for this Divine Source, with Trinity constantly being either 100 yards behind or ahead of Lara at all times. Siberia, the place to be! Like I said, the writing is POOR. The story is as cliche as it gets and if I'm being honest, I find this "new" Lara quite insufferable. Don't get me wrong, I like Lara Croft, and I think Camilla Luddington does a great job playing her, she just doesn't have anything good to work with. Things just happen because they need to, to move the plot along. Aside from the obvious "my dad died for this" I don't really understand her motivations. And this gets even worse in the next game, Shadow. She's Forbidden West Aloy levels of insufferable in that one, Jesus Christ. In fact, Lara reminds me of Ellie in The Last of Us Part II, without the well acted trauma, of course. So many bad things happen in this game that could have been completely avoided if she had just gone home. Anyway, you guessed it, in the end she finds the doo-dad, kills the bad guy, jobs a good'un. It's the setting and semi-open world that I find the most interesting and fun in Rise. Who doesn't love a bit of snow? Well Siberia's got loads of it. Until you reach the geothermal valley that is, which offers a nice change of scenery whilst still making sense in the setting. Each area of the game is fully explorable at your own leisure, with some areas being locked off in need of specific equipment which you will unlock later in the game, metroidvania style. Exploring these areas was my favourite part of the game, despite the sometimes unresponsive and always frustrating platforming. The peak of this games exploration is finding optional tombs and crypts which are like mini-puzzle dungeons that often require a good bit of problem solving to get through. It's just a shame that these puzzles are so short and are never expanded upon once you leave the dungeon. Rise is very focused on offering a 'survival' experience but doesn't quite commit to the bit. You don't have to keep warm at fires, and you don't have to eat or drink to stay alive. You are required to scavenge resources for crafting, but the world is littered with arrows and ammo for you to find wherever you look, so it never feels necessary. Difficulty doesn't affect this either, cause I was playing on the hardest difficulty called 'Survivor' and all it did was increase the damage enemies do. Combat is pretty weak here, but thankfully, the game isn't constantly throwing combat at you. Don't get me wrong, there are combat heavy missions but when you're exploring, you're rarely bothered by enemies and you're allowed to just explore at your leisure, which like I said, is the games strongest point. Lara's main weapon is her trusty bow which can fire flame, poison and explosive arrows, as well as regular arrows. Lara also has access to a pistol, rifle and shotgun which all have their uses in the throws of combat. Combat feels... floaty, I guess? Hard to explain, I just know it doesn't feel great and it was the games weakest part for me. That covers the campaign and that's all well and good, but you know what this shit needs? A score attack mode! Each mission as well as the optional tombs have a dedicated score attack mode that you're required to get three stars on for the platinum. If you're thinking it sounds tacked on, then you've never been more right in your life. How do you feel about spending hours upon hours, replaying the same mission over and over again, trying to get a better score than last time, and to hopefully climb up the leaderboards to get ahead of all the hackers and cheaters? Amazing right? And guess what? That's not even the best part! Cause there's microtransactions!!!! Need an edge in battle? Why not pop over to the shop and spend a few quid on a random pack of perk cards? Go on... You deserve it! Sarcasm aside, this mode is shockingly bad. But for trophies, you need to trudge through. Thankfully, it isn't that challenging and there isn't a single need for any microtransactions, because completing all the campaign stuff awards you with enough credits and cards to do the whole thing. It's just a bit of a grind, having to play each mission again, trying to keep up a multiplier by shooting enemies or collecting orbs. I didn't enjoy this mode at all, but it is nowhere near as bad as the horrendous Endurance mode which was added as DLC. I believe Rise was actually an Xbox exclusive for its first year. Which was actually a good thing because when it released on PlayStation, it was released as the "20th Anniversary Edition" which included all DLC. There were two story DLCs which were interesting but not entirely worth the effort. Those were the Baba Yaga and Croft Manor DLCs. Both offer a little bit of story and a new area to explore. Nothing to write home about. Another DLC was Cold Darkness, my favourite of the bunch. Essentially, you're dropped into an area with infected zombie-like soldiers and three towers which you need to deactivate. Stealth is heavily encouraged during this mission and it works pretty well, as the enemies are blind (clickers really did a number on zombie media huh?). The three towers all contain a puzzle to complete and these puzzles are randomised from a pool of different variables. Things like, if this valve is red then you need to pull the blue lever etc. This was a pretty fun mission overall. And finally, the piece de resistance, Endurance. Both solo and co-op. Both of which have their own trophy sets, because this mode is SO good, that it needed an entirely separate set of trophies for each. Fuck me. Why is this mode so bad? Because it feels like the most half-baked, lazy game mode ever introduced into a game. Your goal is to survive as long as you can in the Siberian Wilderness, a seemingly never-ending and procedurally generated land of nothingness. The mode only ends when you die, or you choose to extract out with your goodies. In this mode, warmth and hunger DO matter so you need to make fires and find food. The problem is that warmth isn't an issue if you find a lantern, which you can find almost immediately at the start of every expedition. You know? Those little gas lanterns? Infinite warmth mate. Makes total sense to me. Food however, is a pain in the arse. You cannot store food to eat later and you don't need to actually cook it, so you will take down a bear, and Lara will just eat the bear right there and then. And the gauge runs down so fast, that five minutes later, she can be close to starving again. Lara, you just ate a fucking bear! That would sustain anyone for weeks! What the fuck is wrong with you? Wandering around the wilderness you'll come across Trinity soldiers who will shoot at you. As the days go by, you'll encounter more dangerous animals and enemies but because there aren't actually that many of those in the game, they just increase the quantity. At one point I had three bears and two tigers chasing me. This mode is beyond dumb. Your ultimate goal is to collect artifacts and those can be found out in the wild or in crypts and tombs. Once you're done, you can light a signal fire and a helicopter will come and pick you up in less than a minute. She's stranded in the Siberian Wilderness and she can get a chopper to pick her up in less time than it takes me to phone a taxi. The co-op mode is literally just the same fucking mode with NO other changes, aside from it being in co-op. Unbelievable. The cherry on top of all this shit, is that to get the trophies, you need to select it's respective challenge before embarking on the expedition, up to a maximum of five. So if you happen to meet the requirements of a trophy, but didn't select the challenge, you won't unlock the trophy. Why? Because fuck you, that's why. For the co-op, I booted up my old PS4 Pro and solo'd the whole thing. I had the PS4 showing on the TV and had my wife's PlayStation Portal hooked up to my PS5. I would just hop between them whenever I needed each Lara to do anything. It wasn't tricky to do it this way, but it wasn't exactly enjoyable either. Overall, I enjoyed the main campaign of Rise, but everything else was terrible. The score attack mode and endurance stuff felt ill thought out, lazy and just a vehicle for driving you towards microtransactions. Shadow was definitely a step in the right direction, still including a score attack mode but with dedicated levels instead of just replaying the story ones. Still though, the new Tomb Raider trilogy as a whole felt kind of underwhelming right? I just hope they can pull of this new series they've been teasing because if I'm being honest, Lara deserves a lot better. Thanks for reading. Arbitrary Rating 6/10 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Platinum_Vice Posted April 17 Share Posted April 17 39 minutes ago, jonesey46 said: Like I said, the writing is POOR. The story is as cliche as it gets and if I'm being honest, I find this "new" Lara quite insufferable. Don't get me wrong, I like Lara Croft, and I think Camilla Luddington does a great job playing her, she just doesn't have anything good to work with. My condolences. I played the first of the reboots... was AWFUL. Very very overrated. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonesey46 Posted April 17 Author Share Posted April 17 45 minutes ago, Platinum_Vice said: My condolences. I played the first of the reboots... was AWFUL. Very very overrated. Absolutely, overrated is an understatement. Thankfully the second and third are improvements, but funnily enough, I feel like they came and went and no one cared. For what it's worth, I didn't HATE these games, there was just a load of unnecessary fluff crammed into them. The first one had that god awful multiplayer mode and the other two had the score attack stuff as well as a load of pointless DLC. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post jonesey46 Posted May 1 Author Popular Post Share Posted May 1 (edited) April 2024 Round-Up I know, it's already May, but I wanted to use this meme okay? Hello once again my friends! How was everyone's April? I did some serious damage to that personal goal I mentioned last month, to get my unearned trophies down to their lowest tracked point on my spreadsheet thing, which was 1670 back in 2020. And I succeeded! I think the lowest I got them down to was 1658 I think? But I started two new games back to back which drove the number back up to 1730, at time of writing. The lord giveth, and the lord taketh awayeth. Anyway, lets get into April and see what I've been up to. Fallout 76 Spent April Fools Day finishing off the new Atlantic City update and had a great time, seriously, I love this game and the new update they've announced looks like their best yet. It promises to expand the map with a whole new area and considering this games world is its strongest asset, I'm really excited for it. Also, I watched the entire series of the Fallout TV show this month and I thought it was fantastic! Star Wars Jedi: Survivor ( #319) Returned to Cal's sophomore adventure to clean up the platinum and I enjoyed myself but still feel like the first game was a better experience. This game is technically better in every way and I really enjoyed the new stances but I don't know, this one just didn't hit the same for me. Pain We're in the endgame now... Kind of... April saw me unlock a whole ELEVEN trophies for Pain leaving only eight to go before getting the 100%. So I really do mean it when I say I'm in the endgame, problem is, the remaining eight trophies do not fuck around. We'll see what kind of progress I can make in May. At this point I'm happy with any kind of incremental progress I can get. Ghostrunner 2 ( #320) Right after finishing Jedi Survivor I jumped back in to this to clean up the platinum. Much like Jedi Survivor I felt like this sequel improved on a lot of things from the original but lost the magic along the way. I think there was something special about the first games simplicity. God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla I'm on a roll baby! Booted this up to see what this free DLC was all about and despite being a roguelike (and giving me BIG Returnal vibes) I didn't find it challenging at all. Granted, I played it on normal, but still. I managed to crack this out pretty quickly and I was pretty underwhelmed by it. Don't get me wrong, the direction and voice acting was stellar, just like it was in the main game but the plot and ending just felt pointless to me. I felt like Kratos learned all the same lessons he learned in the main game again, I mean, who does he think he is? Aloy? Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Remake ( #321) This will almost certainly get the award for most pointless remake at the year end awards, but you know what? I still liked it. I really like this game and yeah, the remake kind of ruins the visual design the original had, but it looks great in its own way. It's only a couple of hours long so how can you be offended by it? My wife and I played this in co-op which is new for the remake, and if you've played Brothers, you'll know that kind of defeats the whole point of the game. So, if you're playing this for the first time and haven't played the original, make sure you play it by yourself first. Doom Eternal ( #322) Nabbed the free PS5 upgrade pre-Christmas and returned to it this month to finish off the platinum and 100%. I. fucking. love. this. game. I'm going to do a post on this soon to fix the mistake I made when I reviewed it back in 2020. Dead Island 2 Picked up the season pass for this on sale right in time for the second and last DLC's release. I really liked this game and thankfully, the DLC keeps up the quality. Although short, each DLC offers a new area to explore and new gruesome ways to slaughter zombies. Grounded My wife has wanted to play this game since it went into early access but of course, it was an Xbox exclusive. Well, now Microsoft are releasing their games cross platform, we finally get to play it! We are doing this exclusively in co-op and we are having a blast. It's basically Subnautica crossed with Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. The platinum seems a little daunting but we're enjoying ourselves so it isn't really an issue... yet. Inscryption And last but not least, we have many peoples game of the year 2021. To avoid spoilers I won't say much but if you've played it, I'm almost done with act 2, and like, yeah, what the fuck? I love it though and I can't wait to play more. The reason I started this was so I could enter @Abby_TheLastofUs's $20 gift card giveaway because who doesn't want $20 am I right? I had already bought the game and it's one of the only ones on the list that I hadn't already played and finished. I may do a post on this once I'm done, it seems important enough to warrant it but it depends on how I feel on it once I finish it. We'll see. but also... Red Dead Redemption I have played a little bit of this but haven't unlocked any trophies for it yet. I was enjoying it but it wasn't exactly grabbing me. I will get back to it and hopefully make some progress on it but I'm far too busy with Grounded and Inscryption at the moment. The PS3 Pension Plan will eventually call its name and then it'll be all hands on deck. Right now, I just want to play through the campaign. And that's April! I hope you all had a good month and I'll see you back here soon with that Doom Eternal post I promised. It's time for me to go and catch up on all of your trophy checklists because I have fallen waaaayyy behind. Thanks for reading as always! Edited May 1 by jonesey46 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Copanele Posted May 1 Share Posted May 1 If I MAY comment (had to do it 😂) Happy 1st of May here, April was a great month! Nice progress there, you have been busy!! I only can relate to 2 games there though so... 4 hours ago, jonesey46 said: Star Wars Jedi: Survivor ( #319) Returned to Cal's sophomore adventure to clean up the platinum and I enjoyed myself but still feel like the first game was a better experience. This game is technically better in every way and I really enjoyed the new stances but I don't know, this one just didn't hit the same for me. I completely forgot about this one... I need to play it too, because eh, played the first one, might as well go for this one. But given how the only remarkable thing about the game was how poorly it ran on PCs at launch...I don't expect it to blow my mind any time soon 4 hours ago, jonesey46 said: God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla I'm on a roll baby! Booted this up to see what this free DLC was all about and despite being a roguelike (and giving me BIG Returnal vibes) I didn't find it challenging at all. Granted, I played it on normal, but still. I managed to crack this out pretty quickly and I was pretty underwhelmed by it. Don't get me wrong, the direction and voice acting was stellar, just like it was in the main game but the plot and ending just felt pointless to me. I felt like Kratos learned all the same lessons he learned in the main game again, I mean, who does he think he is? Aloy? Please don't insult Kratos like this, comparing him with snore-loy there 😂 I do agree that the plot was pretty pointless...but I think the fact that it was a free DLC with Kratos and Mimir only where you just go apeshit was a super big advantage 😂 no Yak riding, no trekking through woods, just beatdowns. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonesey46 Posted May 1 Author Share Posted May 1 22 minutes ago, Copanele said: Please don't insult Kratos like this, comparing him with snore-loy there 😂 I do agree that the plot was pretty pointless...but I think the fact that it was a free DLC with Kratos and Mimir only where you just go apeshit was a super big advantage 😂 no Yak riding, no trekking through woods, just beatdowns. I'm sorry! He's infinitely more complex than Aloy but the whole 'relearning everything you already learned in the follow up' trope is so tiresome. You're right, this was a free DLC and the main draw was the beat downs. In Aloy's case, it happens in a fully fledged sequel that launched at full price. If anything, I enjoyed hearing the banter between Kratos and Mimir again, potentially for the last time? For what it's worth I don't dislike Aloy completely btw, I actually really liked Zero Dawn but my god Forbidden West was a boring slog. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Platinum_Vice Posted May 1 Share Posted May 1 Fellow Inscryption lover here 🙋♂️ I'm glad to hear you're enjoying it so far and you should expect good things to continue in act 3. The trophy hunt in the postgame was awesome IMO so I'll be keen to hear your thoughts as you finish. I adore RDR so hopefully it clicks with you soon. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonesey46 Posted May 1 Author Share Posted May 1 1 hour ago, Platinum_Vice said: Fellow Inscryption lover here 🙋♂️ I'm glad to hear you're enjoying it so far and you should expect good things to continue in act 3. The trophy hunt in the postgame was awesome IMO so I'll be keen to hear your thoughts as you finish. I adore RDR so hopefully it clicks with you soon. Man, I can't wait to get home and play more so that's a sure sign of a good game right? Yeah, I'm sure it'll click eventually for me, for what it's worth I'm really digging John Marston and the mystery surrounding him. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YaManSmevz Posted May 1 Share Posted May 1 8 hours ago, jonesey46 said: April 2024 Round-Up I know, it's already May, but I wanted to use this meme okay? As you should, sir! 8 hours ago, jonesey46 said: Hello once again my friends! How was everyone's April? I did some serious damage to that personal goal I mentioned last month, to get my unearned trophies down to their lowest tracked point on my spreadsheet thing, which was 1670 back in 2020. And I succeeded! I think the lowest I got them down to was 1658 I think? But I started two new games back to back which drove the number back up to 1730, at time of writing. The lord giveth, and the lord taketh awayeth. But progress! 8 hours ago, jonesey46 said: Inscryption And last but not least, we have many peoples game of the year 2021. To avoid spoilers I won't say much but if you've played it, I'm almost done with act 2, and like, yeah, what the fuck? I love it though and I can't wait to play more. The reason I started this was so I could enter @Abby_TheLastofUs's $20 gift card giveaway because who doesn't want $20 am I right? I had already bought the game and it's one of the only ones on the list that I hadn't already played and finished. I may do a post on this once I'm done, it seems important enough to warrant it but it depends on how I feel on it once I finish it. We'll see. Damn, man. I guess this one needs another bump up the backlog line! 8 hours ago, jonesey46 said: Red Dead Redemption I have played a little bit of this but haven't unlocked any trophies for it yet. I was enjoying it but it wasn't exactly grabbing me. I will get back to it and hopefully make some progress on it but I'm far too busy with Grounded and Inscryption at the moment. The PS3 Pension Plan will eventually call its name and then it'll be all hands on deck. Right now, I just want to play through the campaign. I'm with Vice on this one. When I very first played it I didn't get super into it either, but honestly I feel safe saying that it will get its hooks in you before long! Great write-up as always, my dude! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonesey46 Posted May 2 Author Share Posted May 2 14 hours ago, YaManSmevz said: As you should, sir! But progress! Damn, man. I guess this one needs another bump up the backlog line! I'm with Vice on this one. When I very first played it I didn't get super into it either, but honestly I feel safe saying that it will get its hooks in you before long! Great write-up as always, my dude! Thanks for the kind words sir! Yeah I know... Progress is progress is progress... Keeping it all above 90 is the main goal these days and I'm succeeding at that at least! Everything else is gravy. Inscryption is one of those, and please forgive the term, 'true gamer' experiences I think every gamer should have. I haven't even completed it yet but it's already up there with Outer Wilds and Obra Dinn for me. Red Dead is on the hit list trust me, between my best mate desperate for me to play 2, and now you and vice, I'll definitely move it up the priority list! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post jonesey46 Posted May 6 Author Popular Post Share Posted May 6 "the longer the icon of sin is on earth, the stronger it will become" Platinum #322 - Doom Eternal (PS5 Version) Back in 2020, I had this to say when I completed Doom Eternal on PS4: If you don't fancy reading the whole post, and believe me, I don't blame you, the gist of it was basically that I thought it wasn't as good as Doom 2016, it was a bit too difficult, it had some rocky design decisions and this all culminated in me giving the game an arbitrary rating of 7/10. I'm not sure what happened, over the years I just kept going back to it, and I enjoyed it more and more each time. I think by now, I've played through the campaign around seven or eight times, with my last two playthroughs being the ones needed to get this platinum. I even attempted to play the campaign on nightmare but it was proving too much for me, and so the highest difficulty I have beaten the game on is Ultra-Violence, which is the second hardest difficulty, or fourth easiest depending on how you look at things. I think Doom Eternal's biggest hurdle, at least for me, was comparing it to its predecessor. I mean, to be fair, this is a sequel and so certain expectations are to be.. um.. expected? But for all intents and purposes, 2016 and Eternal are completely different games. While 2016 is a straight up first person shooter with some old school elements, Eternal plays more like a puzzle game where each combat encounter is flooded with problems, and you, the Slayer, is equipped with all the solutions, and each specific problem requires a specific solution. It just so happens that the problems are demons, and the solutions are guns. I know, I know, saying Doom Eternal is a puzzle game is about as obnoxious as saying Sekiro is a rhythm game but I can't think of a better way to explain it. I think playing the game on Ultra-Violence did a lot to convert me to Eternal's mechanics. On easier difficulties you can kind of coast by just shooting all the demons with whatever guns you want, exactly like 2016, but the harder difficulties really corner you and require you to learn the mechanics, or die. The best fights in this game has you jumping and running all over the place, constantly switching between weapons, glory-killing demons left right and centre, and constantly using your grenades and chainsaw to top up your resources. When I started gelling with the games mechanics, it's these fights where I became one with the controller and felt this weird synergy with the game. I'm making it seem like I'm really good at the game and trust me, I'm not, but I think I can stretch the puzzle game analogy further - if you understand what a puzzle wants from you, it becomes simple to solve, where as a traditional first person shooter just has you trading numbers. Okay, sure, there is some skill involved, reaction time and finger dexterity are definitely factors in this games difficulty, it's exactly why I couldn't beat the game on Nightmare, I just can't switch the weapons quick enough (also, not to pass the buck, but playing on a controller is definitely a handicap), but if you understand what the game is asking of you, it just becomes a case of playing out that solution until you solve it. Maybe I'm giving the game too much credit? I don't know. I just found myself really enjoying the mechanics and understanding what each weapon in the Slayers aresenal did, and how to use it. Once I had that understanding, nothing in the game could stop me. Sure, I still died, a lot, like A LOT, but I knew exactly where I went wrong each time and how to correct it. Is this game perfect? No. Battlemode is still trash despite their best efforts to update and change it. The story is complete and utter nonsense. Some of the bosses are just plain bad. The swimming mechanics are garbage. The home screen has a lot of weird 'live service' shit despite not being a live service game. And their last update included a horde mode which was a nice addition but it lacks the meticulous encounter design of the main campaign and ends up feeling a little off. Despite all of that though, it's stellar campaign, plus both of its DLC expansions, make for an incredible experience that I do not hesitate giving a 10/10. Since 2020, my opinion has changed on Doom Eternal, if that wasn't clear enough. But aside from a few quality of life updates the game is the same as it was on release. So what did change? I seemed to understand this games mechanics more and more each time I went back to it, and because of that Doom Eternal is now one of my favourite games of all time. I'm not sure I could say it's the best FPS of all time but from a pure gameplay perspective, I'd say it's up there. Thanks for reading. Arbitrary Rating 10/10 - WHERE IT BELONGS BABY 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CelestialRequiem Posted May 6 Share Posted May 6 Feeling a total 180 of something you've already experienced is always really interesting. Because it's happened to all of us, and I think there are a lot of elements that always play into how we analyze or interpret something. It's happened to me with films, games, books -- pretty much everything. Sometimes negative, sometimes positive. Obviously, when it's with the latter, it's nice to walk away from something with a newfound appreciation for what you experienced. I have always heard polarizing things about Eternal, and it seems like it needs to be analyzed with a different optic compared to its predecessor. That makes for a great sequel -- as it seems like you would play this game for different reasons than 2016. Instead of replacing the aforementioned title, you'd play either one for a specific experience. 3 hours ago, jonesey46 said: While 2016 is a straight up first person shooter with some old school elements, Eternal plays more like a puzzle game where each combat encounter is flooded with problems, and you, the Slayer, is equipped with all the solutions, and each specific problem requires a specific solution. It just so happens that the problems are demons, and the solutions are guns. Now that's enticing. Action games where a contributing variable is your intellect to figuring out how to optimize your tools always makes for a satisfying experience. I still have 2016 to tackle someday, but I'm definitely interested to see how Eternal compares. When I was living in Southern California, I watched my friend play through Eternal, and it did look really damn fun. Also, my best friend from Dundee also really dug it, too. Looks like I'll be getting the PS5 version someday. Thanks for the write-up! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonesey46 Posted May 7 Author Share Posted May 7 13 hours ago, CelestialRequiem said: I have always heard polarizing things about Eternal, and it seems like it needs to be analyzed with a different optic compared to its predecessor. That makes for a great sequel -- as it seems like you would play this game for different reasons than 2016. Instead of replacing the aforementioned title, you'd play either one for a specific experience. I'm not saying it's impossible to dislike Eternal, but a lot of the negative discourse surrounding this game on release (including me!) was from people who preferred 2016. You're absolutely right, both games offer different experiences. 2016 is still a great game but its much more of a casual experience, offering a visually impressive power fantasy, with no real challenge. Doom Eternal forgoes that and gives you a set of tools and demands that you learn exactly how they work, or die - whilst still being visually gorgeous might I add! 14 hours ago, CelestialRequiem said: Action games where a contributing variable is your intellect to figuring out how to optimize your tools always makes for a satisfying experience. Satisfying is the perfect word for it! 14 hours ago, CelestialRequiem said: Also, my best friend from Dundee also really dug it, too. Which Dundee are we talking about here? Because I live in Dundee, Scotland - so this kind of freaked me out! Haha. 14 hours ago, CelestialRequiem said: Thanks for the write-up! And thanks for the comment! It's always nice to see a friendly face in here. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post jonesey46 Posted May 23 Author Popular Post Share Posted May 23 "Hey there card gamers!" Platinum #323 - Inscryption There are a handful of games that I'd consider to be required reading, so to speak, for every person that has an interest in the medium of videogames. Outer Wilds, Inside, Return of the Obra Dinn, Portal; these are games that are accessible to almost anyone, as in they don't really have any mechanical challenge, but offer an experience that can only be achieved through videogames. It's these titles that remind me how much I love videogames. They play with the format, expectations and offer narratives that require player input - something that just isn't achievable in any other medium. I'm happy to say that Inscryption is one of these games, although probably more mechanically demanding when compared to those other titles, and that's exactly why I have to tell you to not read any further. I don't want to oversell this game to you, for all intents and purposes, it might not be for you, but it's a game that deserves a chance because it might be for you. The tiniest detail could ruin the whole experience because this is a game that has secrets, and those secrets aren't made apparent until several hours in. At its core, Inscryption is a card game, but it's so much more than that. If anything I've said sounds even remotely interesting to you, then please, stop reading and go and play this game. It doesn't have to be right away of course, add it to your wish-list, wait for a decent sale, or play it on a subscription service if you have one and it's available on it. Again, this game isn't for everyone, but if it is for you, I'd hate to be the one to ruin the experience. Okay, that's that out of the way, let's talk about Inscryption. I'm going to walkthrough my experience with this game from start to finish, full spoilers ahead, you know the drill. One thing that really interests me about Inscryption, is that despite being a card game, despite almost all of its run time being dedicated to playing cards, is that the cards are the least interesting thing about it. Upon starting the game, it immediately gets its hooks into you by not letting you select 'New Game', you can only select 'Continue'. Straight away I'm thinking, "what does that mean?". And this is a very important plot piece that doesn't reveal itself until the end of Act 1, where everything changes and leaves you with that amazing "what the fuck is going on?" feeling. This keeps up through out its entire run time in my opinion, but that moment is the supernova. Sure, it's later acts aren't as mechanically interesting as its first, or even atmospherically, but the game consistently throws curve balls at you at every turn, leaving you with this feeling of unease that never lets up. The cards are always at the centre of what you're doing in Inscryption, but it's everything else that kept me hooked. The game begins and you're face to face with... someone. It's hard to see them because it's so dark. All you can see is their eyes, staring, unblinking, occasionally swirling with madness. They hand you some cards and start to explain the rules of the game. This first part of Inscryption is actually a rogue-like and you're required to complete three maps filled with duels and other activities, before facing the person in front of you directly, all without dying. If you die, well, you go back to the start. The rules this person gives you at the very start here, are quite basic, and it's interesting how much the game opens up with new mechanics and synergies over multiple runs. Because of it's rogue-like nature, it's very possible to beat this part of the game in as little as three runs, despite the game throwing unfair road-blocks at you to slow you down. I mean, look at Joseph Anderson's playthrough where he stumbles through his first run, by-passing almost every road block the game throws at him, through sheer blind luck. If you happen to do this, you end up missing out on a lot of what this part of the game offers. I am not a card game person at all, but some of the combinations and synergies I was able to achieve on some runs were so utterly insane, it almost felt like I was breaking the game, but more on that later. So why are we playing cards with this person? You don't know yet. At the start of the game you are quite literally left in the dark. This person, and let's just stop being coy, skip ahead, and call him by his name; Leshy, never once reveals his motivations or why you are here, the dude just really likes DM'ing this card game. You're trapped in a cabin with him and you cannot leave, he lets you walk around the cabin freely and fiddle with things at your leisure, but the only way to actually move things forward, is to keep playing cards with him. This is the part of the game that is almost everyone's favourite, including mine, because the atmosphere and tension are THICC. You genuinely have no idea why you are here, and as the game and runs progress, things get way weirder. One of my favourite moments in the early game is when you unlock the pliers, a seemingly innocent item that allows you to score an extra point against your opponent, how it works though, isn't revealed to you until you actually use it. I watched in horror as my character used them to pull out one of their teeth and place it on the scales that keeps score. It's moments like this that really make you question what's going on here and what the stakes are. But no one says anything, so you just keep playing cards, and the tension becomes thicker, and the mystery more alluring. Early on, you meet a Stoat. A Stoat in a card. A Stoat in a card that talks. It wants to help you get out of here, it directs you to other cards or items hidden around the cabin and eventually, a roll of film. Every time you die, Leshy snaps a photo of you and this becomes a death card, which is made available to you on later runs. There's something magical about Leshy's camera, although you have no idea how it works, the cards are telling you that you need to turn the camera on Leshy to get out of here, but first you have to beat him at his own game. I think this part of the game took me 5 or 6 runs? I remember dying to The Trapper, the third boss, a few times. After beating the three prior bosses, you can fight Leshy mano a mano, only he doesn't play fair. He has three phases and on phase three, he takes a picture of the LITERAL MOON and places it down as a super card for you to beat. After throwing everything you have at him, Leshy is beaten, you somehow manage to get a hold of his camera and *FLASH*… He's gone. So now all of that tension that's been building up has finally come to a head and you're just... stuck in a dark room, unable to do anything. Your only option is to quit to the main menu and you'll immediately notice that you can now select "New Game". This is where things get weird, because the game goes from this: To this: But first you meet a man named Luke, and you find out that you haven't been playing Inscryption this whole time, you've actually just been watching this Luke guy play it through a camcorder. Then he reboots the game after beating Leshy, and now its Pokemon? My head was spinning. I had just spent a few hours playing cards with a strange man, thinking that I was being held captive, thinking that this would all culminate in me escaping and maybe finally find out what the hell is going on, but it turns out, that Leshy is just a character in a game. Sentient? Sure. But he has no ill intentions whatsoever, he just really likes playing cards and making little stories. Right, lets breathe and figure out what's going on here. Once you select "New Game", you're treated to a series of videos on a camcorder interface. These videos tell the story of Luke, a YouTube card pack opening person who happens upon a floppy disk with the game 'Inscryption' on it. He begins to play it and records his experience. We don't know how, but this floppy disk is magical, or maybe its more Lovecraftian horror than magic. Some company was developing the game 'Inscryption' on this disk and the characters became sentient. Leshy, a character in the game, took over and made it how he wanted, which is what we played in Act 1. One developer, Kaycee, decided that the game shouldn't fall into the wrong hands and buried the only copy in the woods, but she noted the coordinates on a card so that she could find it if she needed it. Well, she died, somehow, and so Luke happens upon the coordinates and finds the disk. When the game reboots, we see the real Inscryption, a 2D, 8-bit adventure about cards and Scrybes. Now, for a lot of people, this might be their breaking point. Act 1 is tremendous and absolutely no one saw this switch happening. You'd be forgiven if you gave up on the game at this point, the game is still about cards, but it's shifted gears and is now something completely different. As you might have figured out, I loved it. True, the actual gameplay loses A LOT of steam here, and while still good, its nowhere near as engaging as it was before. Leshy was just one scrybe of four, each having their own style of cards and playstyles. Leshy liked animals, Grimora likes the dead, Magnificus is into wizards and paint, and P03 is a robot. Your goal in this part of the game is battle all four scrybes and beat them at cards. One of the main changes here, is that the game is no longer a rogue-like. If you fail to beat any of your opponents, you can just try again immediately. Introducing THREE new decks of cards, all with completely different rules is a lot to take in, if the game was still expecting you to do it all without dying, it would be a little harsh to say the least. The game is a little simplified here and that's to be expected. As you can see on the map above, each Scrybe has their domain, you travel to each, solving puzzles, collecting cards, before dueling each of them. Once all four are beat, well, you guessed it, another switch-up happens. This time you expect it though, the game has already pulled the rug out from under you once, it won't be able to do it again. Another Scrybe, P03, the robot one, takes control of the game just as Leshy did before. Where Leshy was concerned with story, atmosphere and tension, P03 doesn't care about any of that, he's only interested in mechanics. As such P03's version of Inscryption isn't as interesting as Leshy's was, but it is different enough to keep momentum. There's an interesting conversation to be had here though. The game is actually pointing out that this version of the game isn't as good as Leshy's, but you're still required to play a whole acts worth of it. Does that excuse poor game design? When it's included as part of the developing narrative? I'm not sure. I really like the story of this game but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't bored at times during this act. Because P03 is unimaginative, his version of the game greatly resembles Leshy's, with the same goal as Act 2; find the four "Scrybes", now Bots, and defeat them. He's thrown in a few quality of life features and made it look sci-fi and futuristic, but he's not fooling anyone. The one thing this act gets right though, is its boss fights. There's no illusion being held up anymore, the fourth wall is well and truly broken and P03 even refers to Luke directly at times. All four bosses have some meta 'gimmick' that make them interesting. Even better on PC as one of them reads your hard drive and requires you to use actual files on your computer as makeshift cards. One even puts down cards that pull from your friends list, showing their PSN name and picture. P03's ultimate goal here is to upload Inscryption to the internet so that he can "live forever". Once all four Bots are defeated, you are contacted by the other Scrybes, who tell you to keep stalling P03, so they can regain control of the game. When this happens, the finale begins. Grimora, the straight up emo of the group, decides to burn it all to the ground. She begins to wipe the floppy disk of all the data so that her and her friends can be at peace. The finale of the game is my second favourite part, because believe it or not, it gets kind of emotional. Considering a floppy disk can hold a maximum of 1.44mb, the time it takes for everything to be deleted is a VERY long time, but its a magic disk so I'll let it slide. We go through a series of "versions" of Inscryption in this section, including, back to Leshy's cabin, where he reminisces with you and is no longer acting in his intimidating manner. We see what Grimoras version would have looked like, which looked metal as fuck and finally, we duel Magnificus, in one of the most epic card battles you've ever seen, but it's too late, there isn't enough time. Everything slowly crumbles away and at last, Inscryption is no more. We see Luke one final time and then he gets shot in the head. lol. Credits roll. See ya later. The finale really got me. I actually felt sorry for these characters. They're just video game constructs made sentient by God knows what, and they've been squabbling over control for years. They didn't ask for any of it. Like cornered animals, doing whatever they think is right for their own survival. The part with Leshy really got me because of the way he speaks to you, he complements you on your deck and plays, something he never did before to keep up the façade. Now the façade is gone, as is his fearful demeanor, replaced by a sad husk, about to be wiped from existence. Luke can get to fuck, I don't give a fuck about Luke. And that's Inscryption, an absolute roller coaster of a ride that went places I never could have expected. I have truly never played anything like it before. And I absolutely adored it. It's a game I think I'll grow more fond of as time passes. Man, what a unique experience. BUT WE ARE NOT DONE YET. Lets talk about trophies. After all, we are on a trophy hunting website. Getting the platinum for this game is not an overly easy affair. Everything tied to the main game is pretty simple, basically requiring you to play the game (duh) to completion, and do a few miscellaneous tasks in each of the various acts. Where the men get separated from the boys though, is in Kaycee's Mod. This was an addon for the base game that was included on release for PlayStation. It's basically Act 1 with Leshy, over and over again, with challenge modifiers that can be added by the player. To get all trophies, one needs to beat 12 challenge runs, each increasing with difficulty and then one final run with every modifier active, known as skull storm. It's hard but completely exploitable with RNG manipulation, save and exit tactics and even save back ups in case something REALLY goes wrong. With the way the game presents itself, as a rogue program that doesn't hesitate to change the rules on the fly or arbitrarily increase difficulty when it feels like it, I had NO issue utilising every scummy tactic in the book, because the game almost facilitates it. I'll admit though, this mode did start to wear thin for me at the end, being that there's a minimum of 13 full runs required to get everything done. With all of the allure and mystery from the main game gone, all that remains is the card game itself and aside from a brief text entry from Kaycee at the end of each challenge which sheds more light on the story, this mode is entirely reliant on mechanics alone. And don't get me wrong, the mechanics are great, but as I said at the very start, the cards are always the least interesting thing about Inscryption. Because the challenge increases with every run, there's little room for experimentation and you end up relying on the same tactic throughout. Which for me was getting a high powered card with bifurcated or trifurcated strike on it, which allows the card to strike two or three spaces, respectively. This is where I felt like I was breaking the game but it also went a ways to making the mode feel stale for me, but maybe that's my own fault? I'm not sure. Overall I was happy to finish it and get the platinum, and the extra boss at the end of run 13 was a nice treat, a boss that was only alluded to during the games finale. But the reason it took me so much longer to get the platinum than I perhaps could have, was due to me taking large breaks in between runs so as not to get burnt out or bored. Those brief text story snippets at the end of each challenge went a long way to increasing my understanding of the story but I fear that, without trophies, I probably wouldn't have bothered with Kaycee's Mod at all. Still, it's not enough to tarnish Inscryption, as the main game itself is absolutely stellar and it's one I'll be recommending, along with those other games I mentioned at the start, for years to come. Thanks for reading. Arbirtrary Rating 10/10 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YaManSmevz Posted May 23 Share Posted May 23 5 hours ago, jonesey46 said: "Hey there card gamers!" Platinum #323 - Inscryption Great write-up as always, my dude! I'm reminded of The Forgotten City, in that I can't seem to stop encountering raving reviews of this game. It's pretty high on the shortlist now, but... yeah, I guess I just gotta play the damn thing😂 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonesey46 Posted May 23 Author Share Posted May 23 2 hours ago, YaManSmevz said: Great write-up as always, my dude! I'm reminded of The Forgotten City, in that I can't seem to stop encountering raving reviews of this game. It's pretty high on the shortlist now, but... yeah, I guess I just gotta play the damn thing😂 Thanks man, I really appreciate it. Yeah I hadn't stopped hearing about it since it came out. It topped a lot of people's game of the year list in 2021 and it felt like it just came out of nowhere. So glad to have finally experienced it, without being spoiled no less! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Platinum_Vice Posted Monday at 11:21 AM Share Posted Monday at 11:21 AM (edited) On 5/23/2024 at 6:21 PM, jonesey46 said: Outer Wilds, Inside, Return of the Obra Dinn, Portal Lofty company but so well deserved. I loved this game and am glad you enjoyed it too. Re-reading about it again today was a great trip down memory lane even though I only played Inscryption a year ago. On 5/23/2024 at 6:21 PM, jonesey46 said: but as I said at the very start, the cards are always the least interesting thing about Inscryption. Fortunately I didn't have this problem and always relished getting the option to choose new cards. I loved getting introduced new cards and concepts even towards the back end of Kaycee's Mod. For example, I was in about run 10 of Kaycee's Mod before I came across an Ijirak. Edited Monday at 12:21 PM by Platinum_Vice 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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