Just completed - The Bear and Badger

Scout

Doom Eternal on the standard difficulty. Feck me what an absolute riot. Loved it but it was certainly testing my patience/skill levels across the last few levels. And those final boss fights can get right in the bin, thank you very much. And so can the Marauders for that matter.

Apparently the recently released DLC carries on the Eternal style endgame and difficulty. So that's quite enough for me. Kudos to anyone who can handle this on the higher difficulty settings. Gives me a headache just thinking about it.

Syph79

Last night I completed Jedi Fallen Order.

There's no escaping that it's a patchwork game, built from the parts of other series and stitched together with a Star Wars skin. There's the climbing from Uncharted, the tombs from Tomb Raider, and some of the tablet powers from Breath of the Wild. Added to that is a lite version of the combat from the the Souls series, as well as the save/checkpointing system.

Very little of what has been borrowed has been improved on - although I do think that the climbing is better than Uncharted, as it is varied and the levels are more open than in Drake's adventures.

But the thing that wraps around this Frankenstein's monster of a game is a Star Wars story. Not just a Star Wars story, if I may be so bold to say, a reasonably good Star Wars story - taking place in an interesting period in the universe (around/before Rogue One chronologically). I was genuinely invested in the characters by the end.

I'd recommend this game if you like a single-player experience, are a fan of Star Wars, or if a Souls game has interested you, but you want a softer lead-in. It's not going to blow you away, but it's worth your time.

g.man

Cool. I downloaded this last night.

stonechalice

I'm enjoying it currently. It's full of jank though.

Eric

I thought it was great but I did struggle with one of the later bosses as I hadn't unlocked a particular skill which most YT vids utilised.

hylian_elf

15. MO: Astray (Switch) - 19/11 - 11hrs Quite impressive for a small team. Oozes atmosphere with lovely audiovisuals and plays well. Went in not knowing much about it and thought it might be a Metroid-like, but it's not really. Linear platform action adventure thing. Found myself cursing quite a bit throughout at fiddly controls/jumping and couple of annoying bosses, and it seems to try too hard with the narrative/narration. Having said that, the setting is great and it retains a lot of mystery and intrigue. Not sure there is much left to do (save file on completion says over 97% I think) and I'm not too keen on the jump mechanics/controls, otherwise I would return. [7]

b0r1s

15. Astro’s Playroom - [9] - 1hr

Purely joyful game. So well crafted and a great intro the dual sense that probably won’t be bettered. I don’t have the nostalgia for the older PlayStations like some of you (I was always Nintendo first) but the references are brilliant. Especially loved TLoU ref. Nice ending and lots to find. Will go back and get the rest of the artefacts once my hands have recovered.

Tempy

hylian_elf wrote:

15. MO: Astray (Switch) - 19/11 - 11hrs Quite impressive for a small team. Oozes atmosphere with lovely audiovisuals and plays well. Went in not knowing much about it and thought it might be a Metroid-like, but it's not really. Linear platform action adventure thing. Found myself cursing quite a bit throughout at fiddly controls/jumping and couple of annoying bosses, and it seems to try too hard with the narrative/narration. Having said that, the setting is great and it retains a lot of mystery and intrigue. Not sure there is much left to do (save file on completion says over 97% I think) and I'm not too keen on the jump mechanics/controls, otherwise I would return. [7]

There's a "proper" ending for all collectibles, including a few hidden ones. I am surprised people had issues with the jumping as I mostly found it spot on, but struggled to finesse it for one of the latter bosses which I think expected me to get to the ceiling in a time frame I struggled with, but it never got in the way of beating anything.

The last few hours are top tier IMO

hylian_elf

Could just be me with crappy fingers. Also played whole game handheld which may or may not have made a difference. A proper ending is intriguing enough for me to try again, though.

Moot_Geeza

Everything aside from

Spoiler:

is top tier for me, sounds like you enjoyed it on the whole though.

JonB

The proper ending is an extra cutscene, and involves doing the whole last stage again after you've collected everything. I did it, but if you want to save time maybe watch it on YT.

Facewon

Tetris effect.

Beginner mode.

Delightful, but I'm done.

Facewon

Lightmatter.

Overall, great. Less than 10 hours. Didn't check timing, but it may even be less than 5.

Puzzles where just the right balance of trickiness. More than one took a couple of sessions and some time to think.

Reckon it could have done with maybe another major mechanic before the final run.

Story is basically the trolley problem with some lights.

Ending is meh. Even by this genre's sparse standards.

Still, overall, definitely recommended.

Edit: proving I have no sense of time: total play time 3.05 hrs.

Facewon

The last campfire.

Lovely little game. About 5 and half hours for me. Reckon if I was focusing on it more I could have done it quicker.

Some really clever puzzles. Nice writing. Everything pretty well spot on.

stonechalice

Facewon wrote:

Tetris effect.

Beginner mode.

Delightful, but I'm done.

How it went for me. I didn't find it repayable at all, which is odd for a Tetris game.

Facewon

Given how I'm going on lumines, pretty sure I've underestimated how slow and old my reflexes are now.

regmcfly

That's Age of Calamity absolutely fully totally cleared on Hard - every icon on the map, every post game thing. Done. A nice 69 hours that took me too. A final 3 hours today saw me through and I never want to look at that cart again. I enjoyed it, but I totally went overkill on it.

hylian_elf

Good stuff. Get the gaming time in before the baby arrives. Oh, wait.

regmcfly

When you're awake at 3am a musou game seems like a good idea

hylian_elf

Too much screen time fucks me up. The other night, I got to XMas Eve or so on Persona 5R. It went on and on and on and I didn’t want to put it down part way, not until I got to a proper rest/save point. Eventually I did and went bed. And I couldn’t sleep for ages cos my head was still buzzing!

regmcfly

Yeah I know it is bad and I don't sleep either. But AoC did the most kryptonite thing to me when it presented a huge map of icons to grey out. So I had to do that.

Paul the sparky

hylian_elf wrote:

went bed

"Bed!"

hylian_elf

Fuck!

RamSteelwood

Syph79 wrote:

Last night I completed Jedi Fallen Order. There's no escaping that it's a patchwork game, built from the parts of other series and stitched together with a Star Wars skin. There's the climbing from Uncharted, the tombs from Tomb Raider, and some of the tablet powers from Breath of the Wild. Added to that is a lite version of the combat from the the Souls series, as well as the save/checkpointing system. Very little of what has been borrowed has been improved on - although I do think that the climbing is better than Uncharted, as it is varied and the levels are more open than in Drake's adventures. But the thing that wraps around this Frankenstein's monster of a game is a Star Wars story. Not just a Star Wars story, if I may be so bold to say, a reasonably good Star Wars story - taking place in an interesting period in the universe (around/before Rogue One chronologically). I was genuinely invested in the characters by the end. I'd recommend this game if you like a single-player experience, are a fan of Star Wars, or if a Souls game has interested you, but you want a softer lead-in. It's not going to blow you away, but it's worth your time.

I completed this last night, and agree with this take. It's a bit clunky in places but overall really enjoyable and a reminder that when used right, the old Star Wars license can elevate things rather than just burden them.

Tempy

Finished two for Review.

Per Aspera, which I can link to. I thought it was an interesting experiment that didn't quite follow through from narrative to mechanics, but at the very least it was an interesting Hard SciFi game.

Also finished Chronos: Before the Ashes. A re-release of a VR game, but not in VR. It's.... fine. Has that light Souls-y/Zelda combat that is sometimes fun when you're dodging and parrying, but too clunky to be enjoyable as you get battered into stunlock. Puzzles are the best bit and actually had me jotting things down. A real budget affair though, only 7hrs and change.

That's 30hrs of gaming fitting in around news shifts and Uni work, and it pays £40. It'll be a long battle to make this worth it.

regmcfly

Finished Vigil: The Longest Night and my review will go up on NWR shortly, but I really enjoyed it. As someone who has a low tolerance for Souls type games, I was worried about many of the aesthetic and UI choices that rip wholesale from Dark Souls, down to the esoteric item descriptions on load screens.

Thankfully the game is actually a really snappy combat / platformer that feels more like Castlevania than Dark Souls (but isn't Castlevania just 2D Dark Souls said the man who hates me) with a real arcadey progression- levelling up comes really fast and replenishes health.
There's a fun and possibly at times too opaque mystery but it really pushed me through the game.

The load times on Switch are a crime, but aside from that it's a definite recommend.

AndCallMeCharlie

Are the load times the only performance issue?

mrsmr2

Journey PS4.

Save us from artists with a 'vision' and no concept for game play. 10 of the last 15 minutes of the game involve pushing forward on the controller.

Only 37% have finished the game. This is for a game that is only a couple of hours to play - says it all.

GurtTractor

I enjoyed it.

regmcfly

AndCallMeCharlie wrote:

Are the load times the only performance issue?

Framerate takes a knick with busier areas and bosses too.

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories