15: Final Fantasy VII Remake 1 (PS4) 10/10

Well that was about as good as I could have hoped for!  Will be interesting to see if I love it so much when I inevitably replay it some time in the future or if I'm just relieved that it finally came out after all these years and it isn't rubbish.

Really liked the story and characters on the whole but will leave it at that. 

Great looking game aside from the odd rough looking bit and and weird textures.  Sounds awesome and makes the most of its world class source material.

Fighting was so much fun and quite different to your usual action rpg stuff.  Didn't get my head around it til maybe 3/4 through the game.  Swapping through your party on the fly is pretty tricky, never mind figuring out what gear and abilities they should have equipped.  It was pretty satisfying when I finally started doing well, realising it had all clicked.  New and different.

It won't be replacing the PS1 game or anything but it's a great accompaniment to it.  Now the long wait for part 2 begins!

Haha, that's fair enough.  I quite like the turns based stuff; my reflexes aren't what they used to be.  And they didn't used to be much,

It's a bit hard to explain but I'll have a crack!

Combat is real time.

You control one character at a time, but can swap between each of your 3 party members with the D-pad at any time.  They're all in the field at once.

You do normal attacks with Square Button, and have guard, dodge and a unique ability for each character (eg: Cloud can swap between stances with different pros and cons).

Normal attacks don't do much damage they build up your action meter.

Press X to bring up your action menu. Time goes into super-slo motion (almost but not quite a pause).  You can then use your character's special actions (spells, special attacks) etc.

The trick is swapping between your party members and keeping those action meters topped up.

There's a lot more to it than that (and you get limit breaks, materia, and different equipment like the old game).

Think the demo is still up by the way it's a pretty good indicator of what the game is like

Finally finished another game!!!

15.Bulletstorm-Full Clip Edition- 10 hours - 7/10 - Xbox One X

Had good memories of playing through this on the 360 so picked it up for a run through and wasn’t at all disappointed. Just a good simple FPS from a time when there seemed to be another released every week. With that same Unreal chunky industrial touch to absofuckingloutely everything, but it always worked for me. Totally nuts in pretty much every department with some of the best one liners I’ve heard. Feels very heavy and a little slow these days but certainly still an enjoyable romp, however whereas last time I played it I instantly wanted to play through the score attack levels, this time I’ve had my fill.

hylian_elf wrote:

3. Vanquish (Xbox One) - 12/4 - 6hrs
Slightly underwhelming at first, given all the praise this gets. But from about halfway through the game, once I got better at sliding, dodging, slowing down time and generally being a cool badass, it became so much better. So fun and so so cool. Will be replaying immediately. 

I missed Inaba in the credits, dammit. 
[9]

Yes Elf, love Vanquish, one of the games of last gen for me.

Specially after you’ve just played Doom Eternal which moves at breakneck speed! I’ve had to turn look/aim sensitivity down!!

Moot_Geeza wrote:

Sounds interesting, will add it to 'at some point maybe' list, thanks. Might download the demo to have a butchers at the graphics. Any idea if progress carries over?

Unfortunately it doesn’t, which is strange given its the same first hour as the full game.

Animal Crossing has credits?!? Really?

Wariospeedwagon wrote:

Moot_Geeza wrote:

Sounds interesting, will add it to 'at some point maybe' list, thanks. Might download the demo to have a butchers at the graphics. Any idea if progress carries over?

Unfortunately it doesn’t, which is strange given its the same first hour as the full game.

There quite a bit more in the full game in that demo area.
(at least 2 more cut-scenes)

I've really fallen off with games since the schools shut down. My work time is now my parenting time and my free time is now my work time. Game time has been tossed in the bin. I'm trying to reclaim some though. Probably going to cane the retro classics even more.  

15. Sparkster (Snes)
It's ok. It's the third best. Rocket Knight Adventures is very good indeed. MD Sparkster is flawed but still mostly enjoyable. This is a strange mix of the two and it goes off in its own direction a bit as well. I played the two MD ones as they came out back in the 90s so it's hard to disentangle what I always thought about them. The original RKA was a revelation really. Smooth and quick and great looking and the characters got a bloody jetpack. Then MD sparkster came along and the jetpack was way more advanced. It didn't do the thing where you just fall down in a straight line after it runs out anymore. That was all I needed at that age. But MD Sparkster is more of a mess, way less tightness to the levels and design. 
The whole series has a slight touch of the Sonic problem. You're capable of high speed but if you use it you're going to smack into something, miss stuff. The more you soup up the flying, the worse it gets. It's possible to get round this with clever level design and RKA doesn't really suffer too much. 

Snes Sparkster, despite having the same limited jetpack as RKA, I always seemed to be stopping just short of some enemy and losing health from colliding, or falling into a spike pit. I feel like this goes off into more traditional platforming layout quite a bit as well. More traps and obstacles and the like. Some bits don't work and feel fiddly. There's far less distractions from the main game though. Only the one fighting robot section thank fuck. But as Retro says it really is a pain. Just pure luck and button mashing really. I spammed the save-states throughout that one, normally I try and do bosses without saving in the middle, but it was every few seconds with that one. Replay and dodge and punch and save. It would have probably been an insurmountable difficulty spike back in the day. 

All this sounds negative but I still liked it, I'm just focusing on the differences. It carries over most of the good stuff from the series. The graphics are excellent. The soundtrack is probably inferior to the MD but still decent. It's probably a [7]. MD Sparkster is a [7] or [8]. RKA is a [9], skirting towards a [10].

29. Doom Eternal - Xbox One (16hrs, maybe)

The 2016 entry is one my favourite games this gen.  This is more of the same, so fundamentally it's still superb, but it over-eggs things a smidge in comparison.  The in-the-loop mini arena skirmishes with melee focus remain roughly the same, so you'll know what to expect if you played the reboot, but attempts to flesh it out fall a bit flat here and there.  The perk game wasn't insubstantial in the last one, but it enters Numberwang territory here with weapon upgrades, weapon points, power cells, mastery coins, suit upgrades, crystal upgrades and probably more besides that I'm forgetting.  There's even some sort of XP progression going on.  It's all a little bit jarring in a game with this much immediacy (there's a hub now too), and I could have done without quite so much menu fiddling and ability tweaking.  Kudos to the devs for making much of it optional - slayer gates and so on - but it's still a bit much for my tastes.    

Difficulty wise I struggled on Hurt Me Plenty (default setting) to the point where it's probably time to admit that my 3D gaming skillz haven't retained anywhere near the ultimate form Muzzy l33tness of my 2D abilities.  I got stuck for ages on at least two checkpoints, and ended up claiming my 5lbs of armour on every boss past the midway point.  It's fucking tough, and I've not heard much noise about it being full capslock tough, so it looks like this one's on me.  I'd rip & tear my hair out if I had to play the last two or three levels on Ultra Violence or above, whereas the 2016 struck me as well suited to replays on higher difficulties.  I'm not gonna lie, as the kids like to start sentences with these days; I had a strong desire to give up on the final stage.

In terms of design I thought a couple of enemies let the side down slightly.  The Marauder just about works as a comparison to the game itself.  Bear with me here.  Once you get used to them, they're excellent badass level baddies.  Adding an element of counter attacking to the mix works surprisingly well, so it still feels right in the scheme of things even though they're doing something new.  Pats on the back all round, good work.  But wait, someone had the bright idea that a ghost cat should appear alongside them and clamp its jaws to your arse intermittently, which just seems too irritating to be considered a success.  It's the extra layer of dev spitballing that turned something potentially great into something merely good.  /End analogy.   

There's plenty to like, but I've decided not to focus on that for some reason.  I had no real problem with the jumping, which a few reviews mention as a negative.  Some of those sections aren't great, but pulling off the moves was far more enjoyable than working out what to do imo.  As a rule of thumb, green bits of scenery highlight your path for progression, but I found some of the wayfinding a bit irritating.  Much as I did in the original games to be fair.  I get that it's there to mix things up a tad, but I would've preferred a relentless 8hr arena battler to a bloated 16hr FPS with jumping bits.  Actually, a 10hr mix of both might've been about right.  Anyway, /end Goldilocks musings.  It's too long, but I'm probably in the minority with that opinion as most gamers want more for their money these days. 

It's a very good FPS overall, but only maintains an [8] average this time.

Edit: I should've mentioned the visuals really.  It's a beauty.  Double double doors ftw; I loved the way some of the 'what have they got in there, King Kong?' doors had more doors behind them just because.

I've been tempted by both games numerous times but never attempted to play one. I still think I might like it. Is it a 'repeat this one thing until you get it right and reach a checkpoint' sort of thing?

cockbeard wrote:

If you mean Morris edge

Is there a level where you have to find the bells that go on your legs?

16.Assassin’s Creed Origins - 30 hours - 7/10 - Xbox One X

This was really good, not my usual, not what I expected, and I had to purchase it 3 times before I eventually finished it, but it was really good. I’m pretty sure this is the first in the series to introduce the levelling system, or at least such a thorough one...though I could be wrong...And I’ll be honest, it really did initially put me off, I didn’t want nor expect such a massive world that I had to traverse to continue the main storyline.

I just wanted the straightforward campaign to run through, and when I met resistance to this it really put me off so I dropped it. The second time I went back to try again as there was a lot of quality but again, doing all the side quests was driving me nuts. I much prefer immediate action and rewards so again, gave up. BUT after getting through a lot of immediate reward and action I decided I fancied a slower pace so went back. And this time, I loved it. It’s stunning, sounds great, has a deep and interesting story and it was nice how it all tied together, plus did I say it was stunning? Bought Odyssey on the back of this seeing it as a slowwwww burner whilst I also play my usual Gears/Resi/Halo types.

Though I do wish there was an option to make it difficult but not because of some stupid levelling system...

16. Heave Ho (Switch)
Calling time on this. I've finished the standard stages (about 8 of them) leaving the ones marked with skulls and crossbones (about another 8 ). I completed half of those in co-op. My co-op pal was losing interest anyway and then the virus descended and I'm not seeing him at the moment so I decided to plough on solo. I probably shouldn't have. Like Overcooked, it's possible to play it on your own but it's sucks out most of the joy. The fun is in collaborating and competing and fucking up. 
It's still decent though. By design, it's quite fiddly and the more tricky it gets, the more it becomes about frustration and compulsively trying to do that one thing again and again. The last couple of levels were skirting towards the irritating quite often so I don't think it's wise to push on any further. It probably doesn't have the legs to mess around with the really tricky stuff. 
I think I said in the GOTY thread that the first few levels in co-op were some of the best fun I've had with a game in ages. Years probably. We were howling with laughter. So I'm not going to score it. If you've got local co-op opportunities in your life, get it.