The Last Guardian. 

Plenty of mulling since finishing it off yesterday. 

It's just a completely beautiful game. I really loved it. 

For a moment after the opening section I was worried that beyond the wonder of Trico (and he is truly wonderful), the actual game here might be a bit boring. It wasn't. To play, it's a linear puzzle platformer that reminded me most of Prince of Persia (I've never played an Ico game before). Puzzles are perfectly pitched, with elegant solutions offering just sufficient pause and always, as with everything here, feeding into the relationship at the heart of this game.

And it's beautiful. There's scale to it I've not really come across before.  A massive medieval fairy tail world, like a less dark Dark Souls, is one of the most striking I can remember.

Yes, there were absolutely times of frustration in getting Trico to do what I wanted, but the mask never slipped, and as far as I’m concerned this only ever spoke to the odd-couple pairing of these two creatures from completely different worlds. 

The king of videogame narratives for me has always been Portal. I think maybe TLG can now sit beside it. It’s a beautifully paced tale about a relationship, and everything from the mechanics to the puzzles to the world itself serves to drive the story of this relationship to it’s conclusion. And oh, what a conclusion!

Obviously no spoilers here, but I will say that it builds to a tremendous last few hours and although I couldn’t predict where it was headed, by the time the final screen fades to black, it really couldn’t have ended any other way. 

Easy 10

Keep your inteespecies love in the weird loving thread.

regmcfly wrote:

Hilarious final boss aside, that's Gears of War 4, a thoroughly average game, done. Fuck my life does Gears need an upgrade. I was done after Judgment and I'm double done now. Beautiful but fucking ploddo.

This. A solid 6/10. Time for a change, I reckon - Gears of Wars, an RTS a la Halo Wars? Dunno.

MP is fun, roll-n-shotty seems to have been nerfed.

People should PM or message me on XBL if they're down for co-op campaign or Horde.

JonB wrote:

Titan Souls Just under 4 hours. 278 deaths. All titans dead. Enjoyed it overall. It's a nice idea and the bosses are well-designed and varied. It walks a fine line between rewarding (the sudden stop when you finally land a killer blow is always very satisfying) and frustrating, and it's probably a good job they didn't drag it on too long, but it usually it gets it right. Quick restarts help. Lovely music too.

I think I'll download this on the Vita for tomorrow.  I've heard mixed reports but it still appeals.

Maybe I'm a different person from when I played it? Maybe I'd think it's shit too?

To the monastery.

Number of deaths please.

Well into triple figures, I'm afraid.

19 Killed
149 Deaths
02:25:10

I downloaded it because I could, but not if want to play.

Dubs wrote:

Well into triple figures, I'm afraid.

I don't think it would be possible not to hit triple figures first time unless you were following a guide. A lot of deaths happen while working out the attacks and weak spot each titan has. (I did manage to do one of them first time though, in the first few seconds - sheer fluke of course.)

But clearly I'm far more cack-handed at actually executing strategies once I've figured them out.

fullspectrum wrote:

I downloaded it because I could, but not if want to play.

I tried it once died five times haven't played since.

The division campaign and all side missions/encounters/checkpoints.

Over 2 days play time, tier 4. Have tried survival once, incursion once, DZ a couple of times, haven't unlocked underground yet.

Granted the side missions/encounters etc are the same/similar in every area, but it's still impressive I haven't had to repeat any main missions in that time. Always been heaps to do.

I realise I came a patch or three late to it, but it's damn impressive.

A few missed tricks. Working out what guns will do compared to others is a bit of a pain. The infected timed missions are a wasted idea.

Also felt. Like the main missions could have had a few more tricks up their sleeve.

Still, when you have gear you like and all your tricks and you're up against later enemies who are aggressive and can fuck you up, the mechanics and tension rarely disappoint.

Uncharted 4
I don't know why I bought it - I haven't really enjoyed the other games, but it was an impulse purchase.

It's pretty, I'll give it that, and I don't actually mind the story. But the shooting, good god the shooting. Actively loathe the gunplay in this game. It's just so boring.

Funnily enough, I've just finished Uncharted 4 as well.
It's only the 2nd one in the series I've played, the other being U2.
Hmmmmm, it's very pretty, and the amount of work that's gone into it is staggering. The animation, the endless bants present when even the most inconsequential unscripted thing happens. Full marks for detail, but...
...as a game it was a bit disappointing. I enjoyed much of it, but the opening was terrible and it just seems to fizzle out at the end. Really goes out with a whimper rather than a bang. Less said about the tacked on epilogue the better.
The characters are charming. ND do this better than pretty much anyone else. No surprise there.
The shooting was still a bit poor, but less annoying for me than U2. 
It was nice to see a few puzzles, but again they seemed to fizzle out as the game went on.

The open world bits were absolutely pointless though, and I'd end up cringing whenever I had to get in a jeep.
Ultimately there just isn't enough to do other than press up to win. You might as well just follow the main path for the whole game, because there's never anything to see if you deviate. All that effort that's gone into creating a sumptuous semi-open world (in places) and it's all pointless. Shame that.

Commits the cardinal sin of having set-pieces that the devs clearly think are awesome, and look great in a YouTube video, but the reality is you just die over and over and over again until you figure out what the fuck you are meant to do. My stats at the end claim 91 checkpoints failed or re-started. Thats basically 91 times the game fucked me over for not being clairvoyant. That's not good design.

So, it's not bad then, I quite enjoyed it, but for all the incredible tech on show, it feels very old fashioned in it's design. Just feels like it should be so much more than it is.

decent enough tho

g.man

Super Hot sounds good, I played it briefly and I'll bite when the price is right, but Frozen Cortex sounds superb.  Both would rank among the most interesting experiments in recent years.  The VR game where a blink causes one scene to jump to another has No man's Sky levels of unachievable potential too.

Moot_Geeza wrote:

Super Hot sounds good, I played it briefly and I'll bite when the price is right, but Frozen Cortex sounds superb.  Both would rank among the most interesting experiments in recent years.  The VR game where a blink causes one scene to jump to another has No man's Sky levels of unachievable potential too.

I wish I could find more time to play Cortex.

I'm really interested in Frozen Synapse 2 which sounds like that canned introversion game from a few years back as it has warring corps and gangs trying to take over a procedurally generated city.