Ah, cheers, ears.

Verecocha wrote:

23. Devil May Cry 2 HD - 5 Hours- 1/10-Xbox One X

Right now I’m thinking this is the worst game I’ve ever played. It looks awful, it’s slow, devoid of character, story, personality, but worse than all that, it has it all in the previous entry in abundance even if total silly nonsense. This is just absolutely awful in every single way. I will never, ever play that game again in my entire life. Absolutely bloody awful.

Are you playing them from the HD collection? I was looking to get that on PS4, was wondering if they did a good job on it.

It's bad but a 1/10 for me is a game that doesn't even work to the end.

More importantly, why did you bother finishing it if you wasn't enjoying it?

Didn't mean that to come across as rude btw.

Just wondering, as I'm not one to carry on playing if I don't like something.

Fair play.

46. What the Golf? Switch (4hrs 47mins single player, roughly an hour mp)

What an absolute treat this game is.  If you think crazy golf is crazy think again, is the sort of thing a full page advert for this might've yelled at you in the days of ten a penny magazine ads.  Even golf games claiming to be zany aren't a patch on the shenanigans at play here.  It's gentle indie fare, with a similar breezy/unhurried feel to the likes of Donut County or Untitled Goose Game, and it's genuinely funny without being as embarrassingly try-hard as most recent humorous games (honestly, I'm still suffering from a residual taste of Freedom Finger).  The whole thing is just....pleasant.  I loved it, it's consistently inventive to the point where none of the stages stood out as weak sauce, and the frankly brilliant Vs mode is quite possibly even more appealing than the campaign.  Find someone to battle with and pack four pairs of trousers in case you both wee yourselves.  Will be all over the DLC on day one. [9]   

22. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (PS4) - 6hr 45mins 

Standard Uncharted stuff, which is to say its a very good cinematic action roller coaster sprinkled with some decent puzzles and lots of walking/climbing.

If you like one you'll like them all, but I can't help that feel its all getting a bit tired now, leaving Drake out didn't help enough unfortunately. It really doesn't feel that different to the first game which is now 13 years old! 

I feel if we see it on PS5 it's gonna need a shake up like God of War or Breath of the Wild, even if they don't though, I'll still play and enjoy it.

Good fun overall.

8/10   

My list

regmcfly wrote:

Verecocha wrote:

regmcfly wrote:

It's bad but a 1/10 for me is a game that doesn't even work to the end.

Nah, the scale for me begins when a product is finished. You can’t rate something that isn’t finished. The 1-10 is based on my enjoyment of it, not how complete a thing it is.

There are complete games that aren't finished, or get game breaking glitches. Id save it for that.

Jet Set Willy?

23. Another World (Switch) - 2hr 30mins 

Blew my mind in 1992/3 but I never had the patience to complete it back then. It's perfection through repetition of the highest order, and the amount of instant deaths put me right off. This anniversary edition has checkpoints at least, which makes it much more tolerable.

It never played great, which was more forgiving in the early 90s, but the delay and overall sluggish controls hinder the enjoyment. You do get used to them but its a far cry from even Flashback, which came out soon after.

The ability to change between the original and updated graphics with the push of a button is a feature I wish more updates did, but I gotta say the updated graphics are rather disappointing. The backgrounds are ok in places but much more should have been done, especially with the character models.

So after slogging my way through, cursing quite frequently, I was hoping for an ending fitting of the opening intro. It was terrible! So much so I took to the internet to find out more and discovered there was a North American Sega CD exclusive sequel, which carries on exactly where this left off.

This begs the question... why the fuck was that not included here? Seems like a missed opportunity to me.

I'm glad to finally tick it off the gaming bucket list. It's not aged particularly well, but it's a very iconic game that made a big impression with its cinematic experience. It's the best version to play, but if they included the sequel and gave it a bit more love it could have been so much more.

5/10   

My list

48. Lydia - Switch (70mins)

Unexpectedly, it took a freebie to rekindle some of my faith in lesser-known interactive narrative types.  I grabbed this earlier in the week as it's free on the EShop if you own...something I already own?  Robonnauts maybe (which is bang average).  Anyway, type 'nakana' into the store and you can grab an assortment of gratis games this week. I wasn't expecting much of course, but this is a genuinely legit piece of abstract storytelling that deserves to be viewed as something far more worthwhile than its current pricepoint suggests.  It's undoubtedly best to go in cold, but with minimal spoilers it's a well written and surprisingly measured tale of troubled childhood coupled with nightmarish escapism segments and the passing of time.  It's a point and click type with the absolute bare minimum of actual pointing and clicking, none of your dialogue choices really make a difference and you're mainly just watching something unfold while repositioning your character, and yet....it's quite a ride, and it hits harder than you'd expect.  It's rather dark in places - it's an 'adult themes' game really, and not because the characters say fuck while shooting aliens that killed their wives.  It doesn't shoot for the moon but it achieves more in an hour than some of those that do can in four or five (/deftly removes shoehorn).  Fleeting but it lingers.  [7]

49. The Stretchers - Switch (5hrs)

Co-op rescue 'em up game that can be played solo, but I can't see why you would given the wealth of alternatives out there.  Unless you really fancied a rescue game I guess?  With two players it's a quality little adventure though.  Hacksaw Ridge meets Moving Out via Simpsons Hit & Run works as a loose description; civilians are being dizzied by a mad professor type, and you have to un-dizzy them in a big machine.  To do so you must drive around a fairly small island (think Crazy Taxi in terms of size) while selecting on-foot missions to fill up your ambulance with 6 dizzies per area, which requires popping them on stretchers and chucking them in the back of the van.  It threatens to come unstuck from time to time due to the way your characters grab whatever you need them to pick up - getting close and waiting for the prompt to appear works well enough on the whole, but it's slightly wonky here and there.  Plus I really don't understand the logic behind your medics not having a Heave-Ho! style cast iron grip, meaning they're forever dropping things due to slightly random butterfingers.  It's not game breaking at all - this is knockabout fun rather than precision gaming - but it would've benefited from a touch more love during the tweaking process.  It's all nice and easy, with no real fail states to the ticking timers (you just lose potential multipliers for tardiness), meaning it's perfect to play with youngsters (I played with a 5yr old with no problems).  Taking turns to drive but allowing the passenger certain controls was a nice touch.  Overall it's miles more sedate than Overcooked so I didn't end up feeling like we were kicking each other with steel capped bossyboots every session.            

It's £17.99, which is a bit steep, but I can't say it wasn't worth it.  There's a sticker book with some optional but enjoyable bits 'n bobs in it, so there's maybe 8hrs here if you're in it for everything.  It's from them that did Little Nightmares, which wasn't quite a worldie but had some superb sections, and there's some real quality to the way it's been put together on the whole.  The visuals are stylish and don't creak under pressure.  It makes you play with split joycons, which is annoying rather than weird if you've got analogue drift problems like me.  It works well enough on a tiny pad, but the no standard pad restriction is a slightly shitty oversight.  Definitely recommended though, and deserved more of a fanfare.  [8] 

I can't even find a gif for it, and I can usually find one for most of the stuff I play. 

25. Punch-Out!! (Arcade) - 3hr 15mins 

Looks and sounds the part, but unfortunately the controls are a bit stiff and unresponsive, which for a game like Punch-Out!! is almost game breaking.

Vastly inferior to the console entries in the series, play one of those instead.

5/10   

My list

1. Need for Speed Heat - 8/10 PS4

NFS speed games have struggled for alongwhile to live upto the holy trinity of the Underground 1 & 2 and Most Wanted games. NFS Carbon on the 360 was the only "underground" entry of the previous generation and a pretty good game. "Heat" is this generations attempt at an an underground game and you know what? They did a really good job.

The game has a day / night cycle take can be triggered in the menu within a few seconds. Day racing is about earning enough money to improve your car. Night racing is about earning enough "Rep" to increase your street cred and level up.

Day racing is alright, theres no traffic to get in your way, no cops to bother you. However night racing is when the game comes alive. Night races are really fun. Apart from the racing around the state be it in circuit races or sprints (the latter are great), you also have to contend with traffic, cars in your lane and head on traffic when you drive into head in traffic. If that wasnt enough, you have the cops to contend with as well. Now i digress for a second.

The music in the game is shit so i turned it off, rather hear the engine and the exhaust notes of my ride. However one of the sub options in the menu allows you to play the police chatter through your ps4 controller. This is excellent. So your racing along, trying to keep up with your racers, avoid collisions with traffic and read the road signs for when and where to turn, then you hear the police chatter to dispatch through your ps4 controller..it really adds to the game and the tense. Trying to finish a race while being chased by very aggressive police is a hoot. Trying to time intersections with cross traffic and nudge a police car into traffic never gets old.

The longer the chase goes on the higher your "heat" rating goes and more police join the pursuit. Initially the police cars you get at heat 1 you can outrun, when the high speed police turn up, then that goes out of the window and your desperation to break line of sight kicks in. Now its not all bad, the higher your heat rating goes, the more your multiplier kicks in for your "rep" provided you can get the car back to a garage without getting busted. Busted causes you to loose alot of cash and rep. So night races become a juggling act of earning rep and pissing the police off to get the multiplier. Your car can be damaged, but at night you can repair it by driving through a petrol station. Your allowed 3 repairs in one night of racing and the cops hit hard. The tension of having aload of "rep" for the night in the balance while having your car one or two hits from being busted and being chased by 3 cops while you desperately try to get to a petrol station is crazy.

Now if you think thats bad, there are races which you can only join if you have a high enough heat level. Yep piss the cops right off, get your heat to heat 3. Then somehow avoid them and get to the start line for the heat 3 race. Which will have 1) faster cars to race against, 2) alot more cops during the race and 3) a prize with a sting in the tail. Finish in the top 5 of a heat race and you get a unique car part. The catch is you have to get back to your garage post race without gettin busted. This is much harder than it sounds.

So as you can tell i really enjoyed this game. The story is pretty good but not the longest. You can go to a max of rep 50 but the last mission is available at rep 30. You can still unlock more car mods after rep 30 onwards, but once the story mode was done so was i.

Unfortunately the studio that made NFS Heat has been closed by EA (apparently gothenberg is a difficult city to get peoplet relocate to. Guildford is easier lol). The franchise has gone back to criterion which is a shame as it feel like there was definitely some dlc planned for this game. The game is the most played entry of this generation, with little or no marketing. So im not sure what EA expected.

Where NFS goes as a franchise is a discussion for another day ( i have my own ideas), however Heat is a really fun NFS game. The graphics are fantastic and the night racing is brilliant. Hope i dont have to wait another 14 years for another NFS underground game.

The game is now off to Bob when he pm's me his address.

Not so good if you're trying to play quietly cos the kids are asleep