Kill Your Completion 11

[MarkusT1992]

Game #1: The Order: 1886

 

 

The Order: 1886 is a third person shooter set in victorian London during the year 1886. You play as Sir Galahad who is a member of an old Order of Knights that fights against half breeds, humans with bestial traits. There's also a group of rebels fighting against the government which you also try to stop. Each member of the Order has a vial filled with blackwater that heals every wound. That's why all the members live a very long life. Since the game is meant to be a story driven experince I won't say more regarding the story.

 

Gameplay wise it's like most third person shooter. During the shootings you have to kill all the enemies with your weapons. You can carry two different weapons, one being a pistol and the other being a heavy weapon like a maschine gun or shotgun. There are also some science weapons you get during some chapters like one that shoots thermite you can incinerate or one that shoots electricity. In between the shooting sections you walk throught different enviroments where you can find some collectibles and have to do other things. It's like the Uncharted games actually which was the inspiration for this game.

At some points are QTEs where you either have to press a button once or repeadetly.

 

The game is split into chapter and I reach chapter 11 so far, which should be near the end of the game. Some chapters are pretty short and mainly consist of cut sceens with little gameplay.

I'm going to finish the game because I want to know how it ends.

What I played so far was very interesting and good. I like shooter like this one more than the ones you head from one gunfight to the next.

 

Time played: Maybe 6-7 hours

Trophies: 10/22

Rating:

[Arctic Cress]

Game #1 - Sword & Fairy 6

Time played: 3.5 hours

Trophies: 6/46 (10% - D)

 

Starting off with the most unknown game of the ten chosen, Sword & Fairy 6 is part of a long-running Chinese RPG series, this game being the first one released in the West thanks to EastAsiaSoft releasing it over here. Don't know much about it at all, but I bought the game at some point and decided that now was the time to play it.

 

Anyway, the basic story is that a cult known as the Risen Soul has been both kidnapping people and scamming others out of money, while still remaining a popular religious faction among the populace. The main heroes of the game raid a hideout in the first city area, Yinghui Keep, and the records they find in that area lead outside of the city. The main characters head out towards destroying the cult and rescuing the kidnapped people.

 

One of the things that stood out in playing this is how similar it is to Final Fantasy XIII, in both its battle system and level-up system. The battle system gives you 5 ATB slots for skills, which you use every time you get a chance to attack, and repeat as necessary. Any other teammates are controlled by the AI, and there's an extra four slots for those partners. They can be switched at any time, or even switched with party members that aren't in the active party. There's also three charge skills that can be used as the gauges fill up in battle - one buff skill which is mostly useless, a team-up skill that does damage depending on the teammate chosen, and a charge skill that does more damage the more you press the button. I found the AI to be pretty consistently good at using its skills when needed.

 

While level-ups happen with EXP like normal RPGs, the game also has a system called the Meridian which functions similar to the Crystarium in Final Fantasy XIII which bestows additional stat boosts to the party members. This is leveled up via souls, which is one of the rewards received in battles. There seem to be three paths through the Meridian for each character, though I can only access the first at this time. I assume the other paths will be unlocked after I finish the first one.

 

Another interesting aspect is this game's scout points, which are small points in each area that bestow items and titles when reached. To reach these points, you have to do some platforming in each area and exit the minimap to find these tucked away in several different locations. It's similar to the Vistas found in Guild Wars 2, which also mostly require some tricky platforming to reach. It's a nice addition, especially to those people who enjoy exploring. The game also has mini unvoiced skits similar to the Tales series after various events that happen with the story, which is a good thing for character development.

 

Sadly, the game isn't all that fun. The graphics in general are very subpar for a PS4 game, and it seems like it really would belong on the PS3 or even worse than that at times. The game has numerous graphical glitches and button presses sometimes just don't register when prompted. There are also numerous typos - especially one that stares you in the face in almost every battle with "Deafult Attack" being the basic AI strategy. The game is also prone to crashing, and while I haven't experienced that yet, I have gotten stuck in the environment jumping around and had to restart the game. Not really a good thing when you have these platforming challenges in your game as well. Finally, the subtitles are very hard to read unless you're close to the TV, which is annoying since the game is voice acted in Chinese, I can't understand the characters without the subtitles. Enlarging the text or making it stand out a bit more would have been helpful, maybe with a text box.

 

The game is very interesting but the technical glitches really hold the game back. As such, I can't recommend playing it, which is a definite shame because it's pretty fun when it's running and not breaking itself when you play it.

 

Starting completion: 71.83%

Current completion: 71.72%

Difference: -0.11%

 

The drop could have been higher but I'm rushing to finish Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 while there's currently a 3x EXP event going on and when a lot of the platinum time is grinding out EXP it seemed like the most logical thing to do. It'll be over soon, so I should be able to get the next game in without any further difficulties. I'll decide which one soon enough.

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #2 - Ghost Blade HD - Preview

 

 

Developer: Hucast

Publisher: 2Dream Corporation

Genre: Schmup

Price: 8,99€

 

 

Well, it's already past midnight for me so I'll get this one going. An indie schmup that is the only game that this developer made. Never heard of the publisher either. Well, if that ain't a recipe for disaster. Who knows though, it might actually be a solid title.

 

As far as schmups go, I haven't played all that many. Under Defeat and Fullblast are the only ones that come to mind. I'm also not very good at them, so this is going to be a fun experience. It's not among my favourite genres, but they just look enjoyable, until I actually play them .

 

 

P.S. I read that this game takes about an hour to beat. Me being bad at it, might make me actually get 3 hours out of it. If that's not the case, I might end up merging Elea into this one and make it a 2 in 1, because that game is supposed to be relatively short as well. I'd add another game to take the vacant spot should this scenario occur.

[DamagingRob]

Game #1, Final Review- Mary Skelter: Nightmares

 

Well, the wheels have fallen off a bit here.. I started the day by resuming where I left off on Day 1. Wasn't long before I suffered my first Game Over. The fights haven't exactly been hard, especially since I have a free DLC item that's making one of my party members take just 1 hit point of damage from almost everything. But various traps in dungeons cause a set amount of damage, no matter what you have equipped. And I walked into flames that quickly killed me. :/ So I need to remember to save often, which isn't hard thanks to the Rabbit Hole ability. It only takes 1 SP to use, and lets you save or exit the dungeon whenever and wherever.

 

I thought I might finish the second dungeon, at least. But I either missed something, or don't know what to do to get past this poison floor. Another obstacle that will quickly kill you if you walk into it. Every character has their own special ability, and some can unlock new paths. One can slice through certain things, another can blow up cracked walls, and then one can shoot targets with a projectile. And some of these don't show up on the map. Looking at it, it can seem like you explored the entire thing, but there could still be one of these things to destroy. And until you do, the path doesn't exist according to the map. So I may have to go back through it, and carefully inspect the walls..

 

The bit I mentioned about the girls going berserk and killing all those around them, has now made its way into the battle system. The guy has to shoot them every so often, or they will enter this state and decimate your party. But he can't just spam that every turn, or he'll become stunned. So it's a bit of a balancing act to keep this from happening, and keep him from becoming stunned so he can't do anything. Not to mention there's a small chance of K.O.ing a girl when shooting them, that increases in percentage the more you use it consecutively. 

 

So yeah, right now I'm kinda stuck and will have to figure out what I need to do whenever I return to it. It's not a bad game, so far. But I don't know if I'm feeling it as much as I had hoped. But it's interesting, and the dungeons/music in them are pretty creepy. I'll go for now.

 

Time played: 5 hours.

Trophy progress: 10/34 for 14% and a D rank.

Completion Percentage: 92.46% (-0.14%)

[Kevvik]

Game #1: Sword Art Online re: Hollow Fragment

 

Day 3 Impressions

Time played: 8 hrs

 

So, I've been enjoying this. I've played through the Hollow Area through to where I've beaten the first area boss and opened up the second area where I've seen what I believe will be the second area boss, a big bad dragon.  Normal fighting of monsters hasn't been bad though I died a few times from the boss before I got him down.  Hollow Missions haven't been bad so far and I've done a few implements where you have to do certain things during a Hollow Mission. This seems to activate a few events within the game where I've gone to certain areas for a quick cutscene, then ultimately directed to revisit it with a certain one of my friends for another cutscene.  The main goal of this seems to be fleshing out relationships but I've found a couple of key items whose use I'm still unsure of.

 

Some story has opened up as I have done events with Philia. We have encountered the remnants of an infamous guild of player-killers who Kirito was involved with taking down earlier in the game. These guys apparently were enjoying knocking players off until a bunch of really powerful players joined up and took them down. The survivors seems to be hanging out in the Hollow Area and continuing their activities.  More to follow...

 

Overall, this has been really good. We'll see if the story manages to keep me involved as the game progresses and ultimately moves into the grind but so far, it works for me.

 

Trophies earned: 3/55, 4% for D rank

Score so far: 8/10

Completion Rate: 84.32% (-0.31% for the event)

 

Next up: Game #2: Call of Cthulhu

 

[AuroraHistoire]

Mission Briefing ~ Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent

 

 

I saw this game on Ross's Game Dungeon and thought it was very interesting. I was looked to see if Puzzle Agent was on any PlayStation platform and I was surprised to find it was on PS3. This is the only KYC 11 game that I didn't pick up in that sale a few months back. This game is about a FBI agent with a gum addition getting sent to a backwoods town in Minnesota to investigate a paper clip factory getting shut down, probably. Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent, does contain puzzles. I hate to brag, but I can't think my way out of a cardboard box. I do know the solution to one puzzle but I'll struggle on the rest.

 

I'll need all the gum I can find.

Aurora            

[MidnightDragon]

Getting started a bit later than planned, but still shouldn’t have any problems with making sufficient progress on Tropico 6. 

 

Starting stats:

 

Games Played: 121

Games Completed: 96

Trophies Earned: 2,656

Unearned Trophies: 710

Completion Percentage: 81.60%

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #2 - Ghost Blade HD - Review

 

 

Time played: around 1h30m

Trophies earned: 25/38

 

 

As expected it took me a bit longer than an hour to beat hte game on easy mode. Got through on my 4th attempt, which was the attempt where I realised that I could've beaten it on the first go, had I not forgot about a certain mechanic in the game.

 

Anyway... there's 5 stages total in this vertical schmup ,each takes about 20m. You start of by picking 1 of 3 ships and get 3 continues on your first couple of runs. The amount of continues will gradualy increase, the more time you spend in the game. Each continue gives you 3 lives, which is pretty much the standard for these games. There is a co-op mode as well as a score attack mode, of which I only tried the latter.

 

The gameplay is boils down to shooting things, while dodging a crap load of projectiles and enemies. Each stage will have a boss at the end for good measure.  There are only  three actions besides moving, which are shooting, using a bomb to clear projectiles and the one I forgot was a think a focus mode. This mode concentrates your damage to a single beam, dealing way more damage than the reguler spread shot attack. Once I used that, it was easy enough to get to the end of the game with the 3 continues.

 

I've given the hard mode a try as well, and only got to about halfway of stage 3 (that's with the 6 continues). You can get the continue count up to a maximum of 9, which might make it more manageable, but it'll still be tough.

 

 

Now there are a couple of issues with the game. First off, on easy mode your bombs get triggered automatically whnever you get hit. Not a fan of that, as it left me without a way to clear the area when I actually needed to. Then there's the hitbox for your ship. I still have no clue what actually counts as hitbox as sometimes I get touched by bullets and it does nothing, while other times it does damage. One thing it certain though, the hitbox is definitely smaller than your ship. While that is generally a good thing, it bothers me quite a bit, because it feels arbitrary.

 

 

This one was a fun game, but these types of games always feel lacking in some way. There's very little content and I don't really find a lot of replay value in it at all. I mean sure you can play the stages again for a better score, but you can technically do that with any game. Under defeat was visually less appealing, but that one at least had an extra mode that mirrored the stages of the campaign, providing a bit more content that way. Therefore it's a .

 

 

P.S. Elea preview tomorrow. It'll be replaced as game #3 by Yooka-Laylee.

 

 

Edited November 6, 2019 by voodoo_eyes

[BlackSquirrell1]

Game #1: South Park: The Stick of Truth

 

Time Played: 6 Hours

Trophies Earned: 15/51

 

What an enjoyable game!  I loved the TV series and I feel like I've joined the gang in South Park, ready to wreck havoc on the city!  Really a nice game, interesting, and a joy to play.  One of my pet peeves, collectibles, are in this game but I'm actually enjoying collecting them - costumes, Chinpokomons - are just a few of them. Game moves along with making friends, combat with anything that moves, completing quests, and of course, visiting the aliens in their space ship.  Controls are easy, although my timing with trying to block during battle seems to be off.  So, I've completed day 1 of 3 days in this fine town, and am looking forward to day 2.  My only complaint is I don't want to leave the game to play the next gem on my list.  Inventory control, South Park face book page, quests, map; all are nicely done with an easy to navigate page so you are never lost.  Go Cows!

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #2.5 - Elea - Preview

 

 

Developer: Kyodai Ltd

Publisher: SOEDESCO

Genre: Adventure

Price: 12,99€ (currently on sale for 5,99€)

 

 

Another developer I'm not familiar with, the publisher however I know well enough and not necessarily for the best reasons. Most of their titles have been mediocre at best, including Truck Racer, Aerea, World to the West, Adam's Venture Origins, Ether One and Teslagrad. I didn't particularly like any of those titles, with World to the West still being the best of them by far.

 

Anyway, this is about Elea. A Sci-fi adventure game, that I'm pretty sure will be more of a walking simulator similar to Tacoma that anything else. I'm expecting to walk through linear hallways, uncovering the story by interacting with items. I'm not the biggest fan of the genre, only having liked The Vanishing of Ethan Carter and What Remains of Edith Finch.

 

There is one thing, that's bothering me a bit already about this game. On Metacritic, there are 2 entries for this title, both having the same description. One Is simply titles Elea, while the other is Elea - Episode 1. Now I'm wondering, if they chucked out an incomplete game, with future episodes to reveal the full story, or if I'm actually getting the finished product. This would also be the first episodic game that got a platinum for only the first episode.

[dizzyshadow]

Firstly my starting stats:

 

Games Played 489

Earned Trophies: 9,119

Unearned Trophies: 6,447

Completion: 60.17%

 

Game 1: Gorogoa

 

This is perhaps the most difficult review I've had to write for any KYC event, as Gorogoa is a hard game to classify or even describe but it was quite enjoyable. Its essentially a puzzle game, you tell a story by moving around pieces of the picture to allow characters and objects to move around. The challenge is to line up the pieces correctly such that the story can progress, as an example you have a character one piece if you line up an open door on the other piece with them then they will walk through it and onto the new piece hopefully progressing the story.

 

The puzzles are actually well done and quite neat, but there is only 1 solution so its a very linear game. Its also not very long, about 2 hours for my first play through which includes a lot of experimenting, once you know what to do it can be completed in about 20 minutes (and you need to do a speed run for one of the trophies). 

 

Overall it was enjoyable and a fun way to pass an evening.

 

Playtime : 4 hours

Rating: 

Trophies: 12/12

Completion: 60.28% (+0.11%)

Next Up: Forager

[Kevvik]

Game #2: Call of Cthulhu

 

Initial Impressions

Time played: 5.5 hrs

 

Call of Cthulhu is a first person adventure game with light RPG elements. You play Edward Pierce, a detective in 1920s Boston with hints at a tortured history. After waking from a nightmare in a dark cave, which served as a movement tutorial, you receive a phone call in your dingy office from your parent detective agency stating you need to take more cases or they will fire you. Following this, enter Mr Hawkins, rich guy that knows you are desperate. He wants you to investigate the fire that killed his son and his family on Darkwater Island. The daughter-in-law was an artist, well known for her disturbing paintings.  Once you arrive at the island, things are not always what they seem.

 

This being based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft, bizarre things are afoot. The settings are atmospheric and suitably creepy, the characters either well thought out or cardboard depending on significance and the dialogue a bit pulpy.  You have stats to slightly manage in things like Investigation, Spot Hidden, Strength, Medicine which transfer over from the P+P Call of Cthulhu role-playing game. These are implemented adequately but other than the occasional failure which blocks certain routes from you, or not seeing clues which are hidden, it doesn't seem to greatly affect gameplay. The more adventure gameplay includes clicking on hotspots to get info and doing prompted Reconstructions (press L2+R2 when told to) which lets you examinely clues not readily noted in order to try to fret ermine what came before. These are interesting but simple. Finding items to use later to overcome obstacles also shows it familiarity with the genre. Dialogue works off a wheel with some extra options unlocked if you found the right objects or have the right stats built up.

 

The story is interesting so far and hasn't felt horribly padded as yet.  While slow at times, it is picking up and I found myself doing "just one more chapter" so it's doing its job at keeping me interested.  The bizarreness that is Lovecraft is represented well even if current methods and themes have undercut the alien nature that made Lovecraft so ground breaking almost a century ago. It develops atmosphere though and doesn't use the easy jump scares of today to build the dread level. The soundtrack supports it well.  As with any trophies adventure game, scouring for collectibles is necessary which cuts the atmosphere slightly as, most of the time, you aren't being pushed forward by terrors at your back but methodically investigating the environment, though the only investigatable objects are those clearly marked.

 

So far, I'm having fun with this but the slight disconnect of urgency from exploration takes away a bit. Still, just one more chapter...

 

Trophies earned: 18/50, 30% for D rank

Score so far: 7/10

[DamagingRob]

Game #2, Day 1- Prey

 

I put more time into this yesterday, than I did 3 days with Mary Skelter. :/ But it is very fun... for the most part. 

 

You seem to be some kind of test subject, and everything seems all bright and cheerful at first. Then while taking some tests, the people having you do them get attacked and killed by some strange creatures. Now you're on your own, exploring a huge space station, and almost everyone else is dead.

 

Since we're in space, I assume the enemies are some kind of aliens. Mimics are the most common, and they are little shits. They can disguise themselves as various objects like chairs... and coffee mugs. I'll never drink coffee again.  Never know when one is going to pop out of nowhere and start attacking you. Thankfully, they don't do much damage. Phantoms are much bigger, and fire projectiles at you. Both are black and creepy. Then there are robots that will come after you with a flamethrower. 

 

To deal with them, you're given quite a few different guns. Or a wrench to smack them and not waste ammo, though swinging it a number of times depletes your stamina. Most guns are fairly standard for an FPS. Shotgun, pistol, stun gun, crossbow, etc. Though the Gloo gun is unique. It shoots some kind of adhesive that can freeze enemies in their tracks, or block fires from broken pipes. 

 

There are multiple ways to reach your objective. By buying hacking skills, you may be able to hack the door open. Otherwise, you may need to find the code or keycard somewhere. Or possibly even enter through a vent. 

 

Another thing is there is loads of stuff to loot from enemy corpses, dead bodies, cabinets, and even trash cans. Some of it being useless garbage, like crumbled up paper, used cigars, or even banana peels. What is the point of these seemingly useless items, you may be asking? Well, there are 2 types of machines scattered around the map. One lets you turn this useless junk into materials, and the other lets you use those materials to make stuff. Stuff like ammo, healing items, and new weapons. Since ammo drops aren't exactly plentiful, you will probably use these sooner or later. 

 

So far, I'm enjoying it. But I did say "for the most part" at the beginning, and that is due to the outer space section. Didn't really care for that, and hope there aren't too many outer space sections. I made it worse by trying to do some optional exploration, so there's that. But you fly around at a snail's pace, have no map like when you're inside the space station, and points of interest disappear if you're not in close proximity. Wasted quite a bit of time out there, because of all this. Load times when changing areas are also kind of long.

 

Time played: 7 hours.

Trophy progress: 2/59 for 2% and an E rank. 

Edited November 5, 2019 by DamagingRob

[Fnee2000]

Game # 1 - Persona 5 : Dancing in Starlight

 

 

Played on Vita

Time Played - 3 1/2 hours

Trophies Earned - 20 out of 42 (35%)

 

This is a fun little rhythm series from Atlus based on the Persona RPG series. I have already played through P3D and P4D, this one will round out my experience. I picked this game up during the Summer sale as the combo pack. To be truly honest, I have yet to play Persona 5 as that game has been sitting in my library unplayed for a while. So I am not 100% connected with the characters in P5D. I don't hate them as much as I disliked most of the characters from P3D. I still think the characters in P4D were the best. However, I will say this game has some of the best music tracks of all the Persona dancing games.

 

The gameplay has not changed at all. If you played one Persona dancing game, the others will feel quite natural. It wasn't broke, so they didn't need to fix it. The only issue I had, and it probably is my hardware, is that sometimes when I hit the down arrow on the cross pad, it would sometimes register the left arrow as well. That caused me to break some combos.

 

The story.... oh the story or lack there of. P4D had a pretty lengthy story at least. P3D and now P5D have these Social scenes as their story. All these scenes consist of are characters all trying to impress each other with their dancing moves. They give you dialogue options, but those choices do not matter at all.

 

Trophies are pretty straight forward. I got almost half of them in the 3 1/2 hours I have played so far. I played all of the songs at least once. Now I will just have some clean up and playing all of the songs again on another difficulty. Which helps unlock most of the rest of the trophies.

 

I like to rate games based on goats, because why not...

 

Persona 5 : Dancing in Starlight - ??? out of 5

An average experience if you want a little rhythm game to waste some time on. Just make sure to pick it up on sale. I don't think it is worth it at the full asking price.

 

Up next sometime this weekend...

 

Game #2 - Dad God of War

Edited November 6, 2019 by Fnee2000

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #2.5 - Elea - Review

 

 

Time played: around 4h30m

Trophies earned: 20/20

 

 

I was right in saying this would be a walking sim. When I think of an adventure game, I expect there to be more interaction and depth. I'll keep this one short, as it's a story focused game. Although there's actually little story to be discovered.

 

The game is divided in three sequences and tells the story of a woman looking for her husband who went on an expedition into space to find a new planet for the human race to habitate. Spoiler alert, none of the plot gets properly resolved.

Anyway... the first sequence has you walk around your house, while being given trivial tasks. The second sequence is an acid trip, which is supposed to be a memory. Whatever it was, it didn't make sense. Lastly there is exploration of a space station, revolving in doing some less trivial tasks. The conclusion is lacking in answers and doesn't really tell us, if we succeeded in our goal nor what happens after.

 

Visually it was alright, the sound not so much. This is another example of porr sound mixing. While there are slidrs for music volume, which I appreciate. There is only one other slider for general sound. This one regulates both sound effects and voice-over., and that's a problem. What happens is that the voices will always be muffled by other sound effects. While the game is fully voiced, it gets little credit for doing so due to this issue.

 

The gameplay is another issue. Like most of you may know, walking sims have a dislike towards being able to move faster. Funnily enough the controller mapping gives you two different buttons to "run". I thought great, until I actually played the game. Now guess what it won't let you do for 70% of the game. Yup, that's right... it won't let you use the run buttons.

There also the option to crouch (again two buttons for it, because fuck knows). You'll crouch exactly once in the whole game, it's a completely pointless "feature".

 

My final gripe is with the delay whenever you want to interact with something or pick something up. Everything has a 2-3 second delay, or doesn't register inputs at all. Speaking of delay... trophies popping also has one, some of the times 30 seconds or more.

 

 

This one gets a , as in not recommendable. It's way down at the bottom of the walking sim list.

[Kevvik]

Game #2: Call of Cthulhu

 

Day 3/Final Impressions

Time played: 14 hrs

 

For the most part, I was impressed by Call of Cthulhu. It captured the spirit of the Mythos tales and put together a solid narrative. It felt a little confining at times in that you felt trapped to a certain course of action to progress though which is unlike the experience you generally get within the P+P RPGs that it was trying to emulate and felt more like a traditional adventure game in that respect.

 

Some stealth and action based puzzles felt detracting from the atmosphere, only in that figuring out and implementing the mechanics of each generally led to slow downs and restarts following death that lessened, rather than heightened, the tension.

 

Another small point was that you rarely saw any consequence or reward from actions where you had a choice. They were likely involved in calculating the availability of the 4 ending options once you reach the ritual but it would have been interesting to see a little more concrete exposition in the end as to the results from your choices.  My last complaint is common to most multiple ending games.  While there was a play out from your final decision that gave the immediate consequences, there was a post-credits scene for each ending. After a fairly in-depth narrative, trying to wrap everything up in a quick 30-45 second scene was unsatisfying and that applied to every option. Longer (and better written) end scenes would have better served as closure to the story.

 

Overall, a good, but not great, Mythos tale that shows the great potential for the Lovecraftian genre in video games but certainly not a definitive vision.  It would be interesting to see this play out with VR though the 3rd person cutscenes would have to be re-envisioned in the process.

 

Trophies earned: 50/50, 100% for S rank

Final score: 6/10

Completion Rate: 84.38%, -0.25% for the event

 

Next up: Game #3: One Upon Light

[MarkusT1992]

Game #2: Beholder Complete Edition

 

 

The complete edition of Beholder includes the DLC which I haven't tried, so I can't say anything about the DLC.

The main game however puts you in the shoes of a new houskeeper for an apartment complex after the previous one wasn't able to fullfil his duties. The game is set in the 90s in a totalitarian state where the government want to know everything about everybody. Your job as the housekeeper is to monitor your tenants and report them to the authority if necessary.

You get new regulations from time to time  which prohibit certain items like storing apples for example. So far I got quests from the authorities to monitor certain tenants and writing reports about them if the do any illega things or have prohibited items. The tenants also have quest for you, most have a time limit in which you have to complete them. Most quests so far required me to find certain items for somebody but there are also some other types of quests. To get items you can go to the merchant who arrives once every day and buy them if they are in stock or you can steal them from your tenants. For that you can enter their flats and search their belongings which also helps to discover new hobbies or prohibited things. You can even plant something prohibited in their flat to blackmail them or to write a report to get them arrested.

To see what the people do in their flats you can buy cameras for reputation points you get from completing quest and install them in their flats. Therefor you have to wait till nobody is home so you can enter. If the come back while you are in a flat you are thrown out.

 

The gameplay mainly consists of you walking around the house and talking to the people to learn new things about them while always monitoring what they are doing. I don't know if the main quests lead you through a story or not but it seems like it. So far I had to get one tenant arrested and am now working on getting the next one out. Since this time he hasn't done anything forbidden you have to find a way like planting something in his flat. If a flat is empty you can repair it and get new poeple in.

Even thought you do the same all the time you always have something to do. So far there were plenty quests you have to complete with a time limit so you are always looking for something.

 

I enjoyed what I played so far even though I haven't played much. It gets more stressfull the more people live in the house and the more quest you have running.

If there is a story it can get interesting to see what you have to do or if it always is the same. Monitor a tenant, find something forbidden about them and get them out any way possible.

 

Time played: Around 3h

Trophies: 4/49

Rating:

[AuroraHistoire]

I Like my Office ~ Puzzle Agent

 

Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent (a.k.a Puzzle Agent) is a point-and-click puzzle game. You play as Nelson Tethers, an agent of the FBI's Puzzle Division (probably the only agent in Puzzle Division). Nelson is doing crossword puzzles in his office one day when he gets a field assignment. You get sent to Scoggins, Minnesota to figure out why the eraser factory (not paper clips) was shut down and get back up and running. Why would the FBI care about a eraser factory, you are probably asking. This particular eraser factory makes the same kind of erasers that the Present of the United States uses. You don't want the president getting upset about his lack of favorite erasers and ranting about it on Twitter.

 

Being a point-and-click game on PS3 (also on PC, most of my minor complaints probably don't apply for the PC version) the controls are good, usually. I struggled with the controls on a few puzzles. For a game genre usually played with a mouse, those issues were unavoidable. The game is split into two gameplay modes, typical point-and-click adventuring and puzzle solving mode. Puzzle Agent really likes puzzles. You will get anything that could possibly qualify as a puzzle. Jigsaw, word problems, line drawing, airlifting illegal items, figuring out which room number is yours, anything can and will be a puzzle in Puzzle Agent. It really easy to figure out what to do and where to go in this game because it always involves puzzles.

 

If you can't figure out a particular puzzle, you can't progress. You do have a hint system for help but you need gum to use it. Nelson chews gum to help him concentrate, but he is all out of gum. Scoggins is also out of 'fresh' gum. To obtain gum (hints) you are required to find ABC gum all over the environment. In the PS3 version, holding  lets you select interactions and highlights all of them. I ruins the whole searching for ABC gum thing when the game tells you where it is. Every puzzle has 3 hints, not all of them are very helpful. There were times were I used all my hints and kept guessing until I got the answer. At least I didn't have to use this walkthrough.

 

Puzzle Agent is a very funny game too. I was laughing quite a lot at all of the jokes. The visual style of this game sets it apart. Everythings looks hand drawn. The puzzles are challenging and you feel so good ?after solving a difficult one.

 

I feel like after playing, I'm a little more intelligent. Just a little. ?

Aurora                                      

[MidnightDragon]

 

Time played: About 12 hours

Trophies earned: 10/41 (18%)

 

Like in previous installments, you take on the role of El Presidente and are the ruler of a tropical island in the Caribbean. However, this time you can be the ruler of one island or a group of island. You can choose to be a benevolent ruler or be a ruthless dictator. Tropico 6 still has the satirical humor it has always had. This time, the game feels a bit more complex, but not in a bad way. You have to work harder to make people happy and all buildings available to you from the beginning of each era are no longer unlocked by default. You have to buy or earn blueprints for all but the basics. The controls also feel a bit awkward on consoles and the load times are a bit long.

 

However, it's not all bad. There's more things to build and do. As mentioned, you can have several islands now and you can also steal monuments from other countries to improve your own. I didn't touch the campaign, so can't comment on it. That being said, you can earn almost all the trophies in sandbox games, so that takes some of the difficulty out of it. Will try out the campaign next time I play it. I accidentally erased my save file just before I hit the 5 hour mark, so had to play 5 more to get the trophy. ? 

 

Updated stats

Games Played: 122

Games Completed: 96

Trophies Earned: 2,666

Unearned Trophies: 741

Completion Percentage: 80.92% (-0.68%)

 

Next game: Harvest Moon: Mad Dash

Edited November 8, 2019 by MidnightDragon

[DamagingRob]

Game #2, Prey- Final Review

 

Might as well get the new negative out of the way first. The hacking minigame is kinda dumb, and the more I have to do it, the more I'm going to dislike it. You have to steer a ball from one location to the goal in a limited amount of time, dodging objects that it will bounce off of if it touches. Making it go perfectly straight with an analog stick isn't the easiest, so it usually ends up ricocheting like a pinball machine. :/

 

The crossbow is not a weapon. At least I don't think it is. But who knows? I haven't fired it at an enemy, so it could be the most powerful gun in the game. But I highly doubt it, since it literally fires Nerf darts. What its use seems to be, is shooting locked door buttons through broken windows. Shooting an alien with it would probably just make them mad. 

 

I now can scan enemies, and learn Typhon abilities. Although, I probably won't purchase any of them for trophy purposes. And it can make turrets set up around the place hostile towards me, since it would think I'm an alien. Safer to just stick with buying human mods. Of which, one slows down time briefly. 

 

Some new enemies. There's these ones you want to shoot from afar, 'cause they split into a bunch of little ones after. And then there's this big one that can take over people's minds. Since there's a trophy for not killing any humans, I had to take it out quick and avoid killing (or being killed by) them. 

 

Not much more to say. The good far outweighs the bad so far, though. Looking forward to resuming it after the event. Will give it a . 

 

Time played: 13 hours.

Trophy progress: 10/59 for 12% and a D rank.

Completion Percentage: 92.28% (-0.32%)

 

Update:

 

Prey is still very good. This is another one that is technically done. Just sitting on the final base game trophy. I wasn't really looking forward to going through it again, since the first playthrough felt like it took me an eternity. Over 40 hours, which is close to the Platinum estimate time. :/ But a second run was surprisingly quick, though not without its share of annoyances. 

 

For one, you have to do it without buying powers. Which means you also can't upgrade your guns much, since that requires buying some. So, instead of killing everything like I did in my first playthrough, I opted to run past enemies a lot. When I had to kill certain ones, it took a lot of ammo which is something you never have enough of. 

 

Not having powers can also force you to find other ways into places. I was so lost with how to get in one door. Turned out there was a vent very high up in a corner. My mom can tell you how I can't find something high up, when she decides the floor isn't a good place for my shoes to sit.. 

 

And of course, the fact you have to kill every human this time. This may sound easy, but it can be quite annoying. Some of them are mind-controlled, and will run after you and explode if they spot you. And sometimes they'll just kill themselves, because the A.I. is that dumb, I guess. Watched one repeatedly walk into a thing that killed him, before having to give up and reload an earlier save. And yes, they have to be killed by you. Anything else killing them doesn't count.

 

But despite my not having all that great a memory, having to look up where to go a few times, and these other issues, it still took less than a day to run through it again. Probably less than 10 hours of playtime. Will probably give the DLC a go next, since clearing it and NieR off of my hard drive would give me a lot of space back. 

Edited January 1, 2020 by DamagingRob

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #3 - Yooka-Laylee - Preview

 

 

Developer: Playtonic Games

Publisher: Team 17

Genre: Platformer

Price: 39,99€ (or get the physical edition for like half the price)

 

 

First and until recently the only game made by this studio. Guess what the 2nd game is... Anyway, at least the publisher has been known to put out some solid titles, so there's hope yet.

Still, I'm not sure if I should be looking forward to this one. Thing is, I don't have much love for 3D platformers, which this is. The only ones I thoroughly enjoyed were the R&C reboot,  R&C Into the Nexus and the first Sly Cooper game. The rest I found to be very mediocre to bad.

 

I already know that there's at least one thing in this game, I'm going to absolutely hate. I'm talking about those annoying noises the devs put into the game instead of voiced dialogue. These were so annoying in fact, that they had to patch it to tone down the nonsense. Problem is, it's still in the game... I'm not sure what's so difficult to understand in the common sense that is, either have stuff voiced or don't. Don't put goddamn gibberish in instead. I mean, that should be a no-brainer, right?

 

So yeah, I'm expecting mediocrity and hopefully it's at least better than bloody Ginger.

Edited November 7, 2019 by voodoo_eyes

[BlackSquirrell1]

Game #2: Psycho-Pass: Mandatory Happiness

Difficulty: 2/10

Damage to X Button on Controller: 10/10

 

So, this is a Visual Novel, or VN, but actually it isn't.  It is really a Visual Tome, or VT, as I think War and Peace would be considered a short story compared to this.  There had to be at least 10,000,000 words you had to read through, and during the first play through the only way to advance the dialogue was to mash the X button. Many, many, many times.  So, the story is set in the future as sort of a police state.  People can be arrested and jailed if they fit a profile for committing crimes, danger to others, or if they are irritating.  The A.I., Alpha, tries to fix everything by using force, chemical means, or just eliminating people to make everyone shiny, happy people.  Needless to say, it doesn't end well.  So, back to the game play; you need to play through the game about a thousand times picking different dialogue options to get to the Good or Bad endings (trophy).  Unfortunately, it is pretty much the same story/dialogue each time, so becomes tedious.  After you play a few hundred times, you are then able to speed through some of the dialogue by not destroying the X button now, but by using the R1 button.  You need many saves to shorten the process.

 

But, wait - there's more.

 

Part 2 of the game takes you to a block mini-game, in which you need to earn at least 650,000 credits to "buy" the rest of the trophies.  So, this didn't seem too bad and I was making progress until Level 6-2.  Then the difficulty went from 1 to 100.  Couldn't get any further.  Thankfully, they have a "free play" option to earn credits.  You don't earn as much this way (1000 - 3000) per game, but it is something.  I figure I might have enough credits in February to finish the game.

 

Alpha - do you have any of those happy supplements?

[dizzyshadow]

Game 2: Forager

 

Cute little game this is, I had heard good things about this but wasn't sure exactly what to expect. At its basic its a crafting game, you start off on a small island with nothing but a little pick axe. you gather materials to build buildings and craft new tools and materials which gradually allows you to expand and the game builds from there gradually expanding the range of materials and hence possibility. As you get further it does introduce a few puzzles and even  some dungeons to explore but they are pretty basic the core gameplay remains about resource gathering and crafting.

 

There is very little in the way of tutorial other than guiding you through the first couple of builds you are left to yourself to do what you want when you want. In fact it goes further than that as you even all through the game when you get a new building you don't generally know what it will do (and even sometimes after it is built its still not obvious). To start with its actually pretty hard work to make progress, but as you get further through you are able to automate a lot of things and then there come a tipping point after which it almost becomes an idle game in terms of resource gathering. But how quickly you get to this point will depend on the choices you make early on, with that in mind its actually worth experimenting a bit as my first playthrough was not going well, but by restarting and making different choices early on the game became a very different experience. 

 

I'm guessing this will be about 20 hours in total to complete, assuming not too much grinding is necessary at the end, which will probably be just about the right length before i start to get bored with it, but for now it is one of the better games i've played recently.

 

 

Time played: 12 hours

Rating: 

Trophies 6/20

Completion 60.26% (+0.09%)

Next Up: Kingdom : New Lands

Edited November 7, 2019 by dizzyshadow

[dizzyshadow]

5 hours ago, voodoo_eyes said:

 

Game #3 - Yooka-Laylee - Preiview

First and until recently the only game made by this studio. Guess what the 2nd game is... Anyway, at least the publisher has been known to put out some solid titles, so there's hope yet.

Still, I'm not sure if I should be looking forward to this one. Thing is, I don't have much love for 3D platformers, which this is. The only ones I thoroughly enjoyed were the R&C reboot,  R&C Into the Nexus and the first Sly Cooper game. The rest I found to be very mediocre to bad.

 

So yeah, I'm expecting mediocrity and hopefully it's at least better than bloody Ginger.

I played this for a KYC a couple of years ago, i got about half way through and yes its mediocre at best, and i am a fan of the Genre, I've never actually been back to finish it off (there is always something more appealing) so who knows maybe it gets better. Will be interested to hear your take on it.

[SixyLove]

Review

"Death Blitz to get Gretel on my Team"

Mary Skelter: Nightmares

Playtime: 30 hours

Trophies Earned: 16/24 24%

 

Why this Game?

I have no idea what a Mary Skelter is and I still don't. I saw this game in the Vita store for years and never bought it. It was on sale for under $5, so I bought it. I never got around to playing until now because I was busy with other stuff.

 

Story

A good chunk of humanity is stuck in jail. Not normal jail, living demon Persona-like jail. There are a bunch demons called Marchens that torture people inside jail and force you to like walls all day. The game starts with Jack and Alice being totally average prisoners. Red Riding Hood appears and takes Alice because she is special. Jack wanted to be a main character too, so he runs after the two. Both Alice and Red Riding Hood are blood maidens, girls with special powers that are the only decent way to kill a Marchen. When Blood Maidens get a lot of Marchen blood on them, they go all Dragon Ball-Z and kill things better. When they get too much blood on them and are having a bad day, they go into Blood Skelter. Blood Skelter isn't good because Blood Maidens become amazing killing machines that will anything will a pulse. Alice enters this state and Red Riding Hood has too put her down because there is no cure. Jack decides to try diplomacy, gets stabbed 38 times in the chest and bleeds all over Alice. Alice returns to normal, Red Riding Hood is sad because there was a cure for blood Skelter all along and she didn't have to kill all the other Blood Maidens. Alice and Red Riding Hood drag Jacks body back to resistance HQ for science. Jack lives because he has plot armour. Jack and Alice join the resistance because it better then liking walls all day.

 

Jack: The main-protagonist. He isn't a Blood Maiden but he really wants to fight evil, so he allowed to tag along and take many bullets for the team. His blood is also special and allows Blood Maidens to fight without fear of Blood Skelter.

Alice: Friends with Jack because Jack was the only person that was nice to her. Alice is the smart character, who is always right.

Red Riding Hood: The "field leader" because everyone else died or is not part of your party yet. She has leader qualities and stuff.

Snow White: Her personality is that she has no personality. She also refers to herself in the third person and spills hot tea on Jack. 

Sleeping Beauty: The voice actor requested to be paid by the word, so she doesn't talk much. Sleeping Beauty is probably sleep walking through the whole game. It probably wasn't a great idea to give her a gun,

Tumbelina: Your typical vertically challenged textbook tsundere. I actually like her for some reason. Don't call her short or young or else she will get very mad.

Cinderella: She takes her time joining your party because she was busy cleaning. She turns into a complete mess if she loses something.

Kaguya: A lazy hermit who doesn't want to do anything. It was a pain to recruit her for my party. 

Rapunzel: Aside from the opening, I haven't even seen her yet. She looks like a little kid, even younger then Tumbelina, She will probably be a little brat, with her redeeming quality being hitting things really hard with a hammer.

Professor Tohjima: The old scientist man that does all the hard science. He is also the leader of the resistance, called the Dawn of something or other. Red Riding Hood calls him dad.

Miko Ueshima: She accidentally super glued her hand to her glasses. She also does science things and seems to hate everyone equally.

Haru: Upgrades your weapons and smokes all the cigarettes.

Clara: Little child the runs the shop you never visit.

Merchant: The creepy guy the appears randomly in dungeons. He runs the shop that you want to visit regularly but can't because it's rare random event.

Towa Kadowaki: The guy who guards the front gate. Also, a closet serial killer.

Michiru/Oohime: The prophet of the Sun Worshipers who is probably just on all of the drugs.

Hitsuka: The other Sun Worshiper that does all the work. Will probably try to kill you at some point.

Gretel: The one person that has kept me playing. The reason this "review' is late. I saw Gretel in the intro and she looked so cool. I'm very determined about getting her into my party. Will use her even if she as good as a Magikarp. I've actually met her, right now she is a bit evil and wants me dead. We will be best friends forever. She will probably betray everyone at some point but we will forgive her because she is awesome. 

 

Gameplay

Mary Skelter: Nightmares is a grid based, dungeon exploring RPG with almost everything. You have a class system, weapon upgrading, de-leveling, skill customization, affection system, lewd rubbing mini game and probably more stuff that I haven't unlocked yet.

 

You will mostly be exploring grid based dungeons with a confusing layout in search of the plot. The dungeon feature traps and a little puzzle solving. You will encounter both random and static enemy encounters. There is also a super powerful enemy called a nightmare that will occasionally try to kill you if enter it's personal space bubble. It has plot armour until you do plot stuff. You mostly just run away until you exit the personal space bubble, unless you get trapped in a corner, You are forced to fight it until you break part of it and then you are allowed to run away while it is stunned. You can also find treasure in the dungeons. The treasure is usually junk but a cup of coffee costs 5000 usd, so you can't afford better stuff.

 

Your battles are general RPG stuff. You can have up to 5 party members (5 members in new to me) + Jack + Support in a battle at once. You win once the enemy is dead, you lose if your Blood Maidens are all knocked out (Jack doesn't count). Blood Maidens have a basic attack command, magic that uses SP, lick, defend and escape. All those options, besides lick, should should be familiar if you have played any turn based RPG in your life. Your secondary goal in battle is to create as much blood as possible. You do this by hitting enemies with the element type they're weak against, getting critical hits and killing the enemy so hard, it blood spatters everywhere. Every Blood Maiden had a blood meter on the side. You can use the lick option to consume another Blood Maiden's meter in exchange for a powerful effect. If the meter is full, at the start of a Maiden's turn, they will enter Massacre. Massacre turns the Maidens hair white, gives them more attack power, they gain access to more spells, that are cheaper than a game in a Steam sale to cast, and will heal both HP and SP if a blood spatter is created while they're in this mode. Massacre mode ends after the battle is over or a few turns pass. If a Blood Maidens blood gets corrupted too much, they will enter Blood Skelter, which is usually not great. They are super strong and can attack multiple times per-turn but you have zero-control over what they do and who they will attack. 

 

Jack is also a party member in battle but his role is different because he is special. Jack can create blood, Mary Gun, Guard, use a item or escape. The Mary Gun allows Jack to remove corruption from a Bloods Maidens blood and take them out of Blood Skelter state, in exchange for his blood. Jack has his own blood meter that, can be refilled with the create blood option. Guard allows Jack to tank the damage the damage a Blood Maiden would receive; he can usually only take a single hit before he is stunned. Under normal conditions, items are exclusive to Jack, so he has that going for him. Jack can be knocked out if he losses too much blood or tanks too much during a fight. Jack isn't very useful if you'e doing well, if you're in trouble, he can rip victory from the jaws of defeat. 

 

Graphics and Sound

I have no complaints about the graphics. Everything looks great and interesting. I like how the blood is a florescent bright pink, because I would probably faint it was red. The soundtrack is very good so far. 

 

Trophy Thoughts

I have been playing for fun and haven't thought about trophy much. I haven't looked at the list too much to avoid spoilers and I don't care about trophy too much.

 

Final Thoughts

I absolutely adore this game. It was a bit harder then I would have liked on Normal, so I turned the difficulty down. It's so fun to play but I did get lost really badly in a few dungeons. This will most likely be my favorite game of the event. I'll probably do a second review of this one, after I've done most of the things. There a game mechanics I haven't even mentioned.