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Topic: What PS3 game(s) are you currently playing?

Posts 981 to 1,000 of 1,672

TruthfulVoice

I guess technically nothing really atm (too many PS4 games to focus on atm; 2017 has one of the best/most brutal release schedules in gaming history), but I've been playing Sega/Media Vision's Shining Resonance on-and-off since Christmas. I imported it 'cuz I got interested in seeing what they did before Valkyria Revolution comes out, plus I like Media Vision in general, and it looked like a Tales game and I'm a big, big fan of Xillia and Berseria. Language barrier is no problem as long as you're familiar with "the universal language of RPGs", and can spot quest markers and stuff on minimaps. Plus there's enough "anime expressions" going on to get the point of what characters are feeling/saying across. Was having a great time with it... then I got Tales of Berseria. And Gravity Rush 2. And Yakuza. And NieR Automata. And Horizon. And Dragon Quest Heroes 2. And Toukiden 2. And Snake Pass. And Shiness: The Lightning Kingdom. And Persona 5. etc. etc. etc.

I'll pick it up again later in the year.

I'll also occasionally fire up NFL Blitz when I wanna get some football video gameage in Besides the upcoming Mutant Football League, its not like there's any other option for arcadey football, so I figure that's staying on my PS3 hard drive for a long, long time.

But mostly just chugging away at my backlog games on the PS4. Seriously... there's so much current gen gaming to be done, my PS3 is spending a lot of time currently just sitting there unplugged (no sense in cranking up the Power Bill, y'know?).

TruthfulVoice

FullbringIchigo

Lords of Shadow 2 although i'm dreading redoing that bloody stealth boss fight

"I pity you. You just don't get it at all...there's not a thing I don't cherish!"

"Now! This is it! Now is the time to choose! Die and be free of pain or live and fight your sorrow! Now is the time to shape your stories! Your fate is in your hands!

kyleforrester87

@KratosMD I love DS. DS2 is one of my favourite games ever. Played it 3 times, don't think I played any other PS3 game through more than once.

DS3 is poor by comparison but.. it's still Dead Space!

kyleforrester87

PSN: WigSplitter1987

Tasuki

@KratosMD Well that and the creators of Dead Space are the founders of Sledgehammer Games. So of they do make a new one, it will be a whole new team that does it.

RetiredPush Square Moderator and all around retro gamer.

My Backlog

PSN: Tasuki3711

Rudy_Manchego

I loved Dead Space 1 and 2. I liked them so much I even bought the anime dvd 'movies'. I have them on my 360 and I also have dead space 3 on the shelf but never touched it as a lot of friends warned me against it.

Now I may be an idiot, but there's one thing I am not sir, and that sir, is an idiot

PSN: Rudy_Manchego | Twitter:

WiiWareWave

Star Ocean: The Last Hope: International. Don't waste your time trying to get the platinum in this one. There are a couple of luck-based trophies and farming items for the two hardest trophies can take 500 hours or more...xP

Owner of http://www.WiiWareWave.com

PSN ID: Rukiafan7
NNID: Rukiafan7
Switch FC: SW-6328-7327-5891 ~WiiWareWav~

PSN: Rukiafan7 | Twitter:

Rudy_Manchego

@kyleforrester87 Yeah, I think it is one of those games that I bought thinking I would get to it but just never had the pull. I wanted the butt clenching terror of entering each room and not knowing how to configure my weapons!

Now I may be an idiot, but there's one thing I am not sir, and that sir, is an idiot

PSN: Rudy_Manchego | Twitter:

Splat

RDR is probably in my top 5 last gen games. It's easily my favorite Rockstar game.

"What do you reckon, we're gonna have to climb that thing?" ~ Chloe Frazer

"I reckon I'M gonna have to climb that thing." ~ Nathan Drake

PSN: Splathew

Th3solution

@KratosMD Yeah, RDRedemption is one of greatest, especially the end. Hmmm sounds like a topic for a thread if there's not one already. 🤔 I'm curious what people think are some of their favorite game endings.
Anyway, enjoy Red Dead! Can't wait for the sequel.

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

Th3solution

@KratosMD And there's actually more than one aspect of the ending that is awesome. There's an ending, then another ending — like an epilogue sort of, which I loved. So maybe you haven't had everything spoiled

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

RogerRoger

I'm really struggling with Red Dead Redemption.

Probably 50% the game, 50% me. As with most open-world sandbox games, there's simply too much information dumped on you in the first hour. I missed half a dozen pop-up notifications in the top-left corner, with the tiny text that barely hangs around, so much so that some major mechanics of the game still elude me. I have no idea how to actually do a stand-off. I just take aim with L1 and spam Dead Eye in the hopes that I'm quicker than my opponent; the two that I've had to do as part of story missions took three or four attempts, and the one I did randomly in the street resulted in my death and re-spawning at the nearest room I'd purchased.

Speaking of which, I also missed the notification about Camping (in fact, I missed that I had a Satchel at all for a long while) and spent forever riding back to the nearest town to advance time and save my progress between missions, most of which invariably ended in the middle of nowhere. Coupled with the ever-frustrating "come back between 5am and 12pm tomorrow" restrictions on some missions (I don't care if it's late; I can see your light on, I know you're home!) and I'm sure I've wasted far, far more time than I should have. When a friend told me about Camping, I could've screamed.

Despite those self-imposed delays, I really feel like the single player storyline is dragging on, unnecessarily so. I'm all for longer games, but a lot of the missions in Red Dead feel like padding. I've lost track of the amount of times I'd start one with the promise of advancing the plot, only to complete a few objectives and have somebody say "Great, thanks for that... so listen, y'know I said I'd help you find those people you're looking for? Come back tomorrow and do me another favour, and we'll see about whether I'll consider thinking about trying to start to wonder about finding out some vague clues for you, okay cheers, bye!" None of it seems to have any bearing on John Marsden's storyline; they're all just obstacles to overcome in the hunt for your former friends, to the point where I feel slightly detatched from the core plot by the time more of it swings around.

It's quite telling that the game only rewards you with story-related trophies once in a blue moon. I've cleared a good two-thirds of the game (I've just finished off the Mexico storyline and am heading to Blackwater) and yet I've only got four bronze trophies, two suddenly back-to-back, and for a good twenty-odd missions in the middle there, I got nothing. That stings a little more when I look at the extensive trophy list and realise I'm never gonna get the majority of them, because they're mostly rewards for multiplayer or Undead Nightmare, modes I have no interest in.

Also, I really hate saying this one because it makes me sound crazy, but the world is too alive. That might be a result of the game's age. Back when open-world sandbox games were all the rage, developers loved to pack in little touches that made everything feel more real, and Red Dead has some great ones, but they're too frequent and can cause real headaches to those just trying to make their way in the Wild West (yes, I know, it's realistic... but, at the risk of sounding like one of those horrible customers from Westworld, I'm trying to play a game in my downtime, I'm trying to relax and ride some horses and play some poker, not stress over whether I'm gonna get robbed on my way back to the ranch). More modern games of the genre, like Horizon: Zero Dawn, have found the perfect balance. I feel that Red Dead 2 really needs to tone down some of the hazards, or at least the penalties for failure in smaller tasks.

I also had to drastically lower the camera sensitivity for some bizarre reason, to avoid doing a complete one-eighty whenever I happened to cough near the right analogue stick (I've had man-flu recently... maybe that's why I'm so grumpy about this game?).

There are, however, things I do like. I like John Marsden. I was expecting Rockstar to serve up another unsympathetic drug-dealing, drunken pervert protagonist, and when he started talking about "doing bad things in my past" I got a little concerned, but he has a moral compass and is trying to do right by his nefarious history, his wife and his child, which I appreciate. I love the little touches, like when he visits a house of ill repute and the members of the oldest profession call to him, and he replies with "Sorry, ma'am, I'm married." Being able to play him as a good man, avoiding killing innocent people and animals, is something I wasn't expecting. It's nice, especially when most of the other characters you encounter are just downright awful people (with a few notable exceptions; Bonnie and her father are great, and the old gunslinger who you find upon arriving in Mexico, who just spends his days helping people out, was awesome).

I'm gonna finish the story and then gather as many of the additional trophies as I can, such as Bandit Camps and Strangers, before putting it to bed. I'm still looking forward to the sequel, but I think I'll wait to see a few reviews and snippets of gameplay before taking the plunge. Here's hoping all the tweaks and changes they've made aren't just graphical.

Edited on by RogerRoger

"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."

PSN: GDS_2421
Making It So Since 1987

Th3solution

@RogerRoger Argh.. it pains me to read your critique of one of my fondest PS3 memories. You monster. What do you know of true greatness... humph 😤
😉 But seriously, I actually quite enjoyed reading your experience. I did love RDR but it has been so long since I played it that there may be some rose-tinted glasses reminiscence going on. I poured a boat-load of time into it, but don’t remember ever feeling like it was stale or that the narrative was sluggish, as you have so humorously relayed.
It seems like there is a auto-aim setting I used which made the game actually quite easy, iirc. I know you’re not likely to have co-op or MP available with the game this old (pretty sure the servers are long gone), but I have some of my greatest online memories from doing co-op missions and playing games with an online friend back then, and I don’t even like online gaming.
That said, I completely understand the frustrations you describe. I went out of my way to trophy hunt and played quite a long while on the game and still only achieved 60% of the trophy list. The platinum has a 0.4% achievement rate, so it’s pretty scarce.
And I know you’ve heard this many times before, but the payoff is really worth it in the end. The story is not necessarily my favorite video game story as a whole, but the ending is definitely one of my favorites. Along with — Bioshock Infinite, The Last of Us, and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, RDR was the cream of the PS3 crop as far as endings go, imho.
Hang in there and keep us updated how your impressions change (or don’t change) as you reach the end.

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

RogerRoger

@Th3solution Well, after my rant yesterday, I had a clear evening and so pushed ahead... and ended up finishing the story in a four-hour chunk of gameplay (I never usually play for so long at once any more, which gives you a clue as to how much I enjoyed the finale).

I guessed John would die two missions before he actually did, because I chatted to Death, or at least the Stranger who was so blatantly Death. Having recently played L.A. Noire and seen the ending to that storyline, I put two and two together. What was a surprise, however, was to return as Jack Marsden three years later, to take revenge and continue the unfinished side quests... that was a stroke of genius, and a wonderful extra touch that most developers wouldn't even think to do (rather than record brand new incidental dialogue for a new character, and change all the side quest character exchanges, etc. almost all open-world sandboxes just boot you back to the point before the finale, which is what I was expecting to happen). To that end, I hopped back on for a couple hours this morning, just to see how different Jack was, and kinda enjoyed wrapping up the Bandit Camps and Stranger quests I had yet to complete with a totally new character. I really like Jack, perhaps moreso than John, and now I'm hoping the rumours about Red Dead 2 being a prequel aren't true; I'd like to see a sequel with Jack continuing his father's legacy.

Whilst I'm in these spoiler tags, however, I feel like I should give the storyline some knocks. Having now seen it all conclude, I feel that a lot of the hype and praise lavished on the game is because of the last hour of a twenty-something-hour storyline. The core plot is "John Marsden must hunt down his old gang for the government, who are holding his family hostage. John achieves this, and has a moment of peace, before the government then turns on him. Years later, John's son returns to have his revenge." Can anybody please tell me what anything that happened in Mexico had to do with that?! I know storylines in big games like this need to be diverse, and the characters were all certainly unique and interesting, but I felt that the Mexico diversion was simply because Rockstar wanted to pad things out and have a couple more places on the map. Gameplay impacted narrative; I know that's the eternal struggle of story-driven games, but this was a really glaring example of one beating out the other.

I felt a little guilty about my previous criticism of the slow mid-section of the story, because I hadn't seen the end and hadn't therefore seen how it all came together, but the truth is that helping revolutionaries south of the border had nothing to do with anything, except stringing John along for a good two-dozen missions. I'd have felt more emotional at the finale, everything would've had more impact, if it hung together better. As such, during those famous, epic last hours on John's ranch, I was either fed up of following my dog back into the tall trees for the eleventh time, or just left going "hey, that was cool, I guess" and wondering what my final trophy percentage would be. Oh, and stop telling me that my family member isn't around at the moment when they're standing right there!

A friend of mine was texting me last night, and she played it at release and said it was "amazing" but that she hadn't ever replayed it since, which I found quite telling. She asked me "Did you love the bit where you're riding your horse back from that mission and that song plays?" and that question just reinforced how I feel, namely that a lot of the praise Red Dead receives is for small moments of genuis in an otherwise-sprawling wasteland of mediocrity. That bit she was referring to was ninety seconds, tops. Last night, I played the very best four hours of the game and (mostly) loved them, but I came away feeling like the twenty previous hours it took to get there were a chore. Whilst I'd never be arrogant enough to tell another person what they think, your comment about not having played it for a while and therefore admitting the possibility of nostalgia goggles influencing your opinion might be right on the money.

And hey, there's nothing wrong with that, not in the slightest. My favourite Star Wars film is The Phantom Menace; not because I think it's a cinematic masterpiece, but because I was eleven when it came out. I was the target audience, the marketing worked like a dream and everything about it was my life for two years, and that's tough to get over, no matter how many qualifications in media and film I've subsequently achieved. Because of that, I really wish that I'd played Red Dead at launch, because I'm almost certain I'd have thought it was wonderful (story pacing issues aside). I can tell that, at the time, it was the pinnacle of open-world sandbox gaming.

Part of me does wish the multiplayer servers were more active, so that I could at least give some of the co-operative modes a try, because I'd imagine they could be quite fun with the right group of friends (similar to you, I'm generally not one for multiplayer either, and I doubt I could even cobble together a friend to play with, let alone the two or three required for a posse). I guess I'm focused on the narrative of the single player because it's all that remains of what is obviously quite a complex, multi-layered experience. There's a trade-off between gameplay mechanics and telling a cinematic story, and I have to say that Rockstar always take on some of the very best cinematic genres (western, film noir) and then deliver on the atmosphere, but never the substance. I felt the same after L.A. Noire and it's a shame (although I should acknowledge that writing thirty-odd hours of content for an interactive experience is way tougher than writing a two-hour, sit-down-shut-up-and-just-watch film, so perhaps I shouldn't criticise too loudly).

Early last year, I replayed the PS2 western GUN. That's an even older game, but I felt it captured the sweeping, romantic nature of the Wild West much better than Red Dead did. That's probably down to the music. For the record (pun semi-intended), I don't like vocals in music, so that aforementioned example I gave before left me cold and, overall, I was underwhelmed by the subdued, minimalist music in Red Dead. On the other hand, I've got a copy of, and listen regularly to, GUN's big, bold orchestral soundtrack, which sounds like it was ripped straight from the most clichéd of Hollywood films. It's just another illustration of what I mentioned in my previous post; I can only speak for myself, but I love my games to be escapist fantasy, with everything dialled up to eleven. GUN was that. Red Dead was not. Perhaps the latter is a more remarkable achievement, and huge credit to the accomplishment of the developers, but the former is where I'll always hang my hat.

In other words, as I opened with yesterday, my problems with Red Dead are 50% the game's fault and 50% my own. The ending did a lot of heavy lifting to elevate the rest of the experience, but it made the whole thing worthwhile. I'm glad I played it, glad I enjoyed the moments that I did, and glad that I've ticked another important piece of gaming history off my to-do list.

Final note: those other games you mentioned with great endings? Never played any of those, either. I can't go anywhere near The Last of Us (which still pains me to this day; I adore Naughty Dog, but I can't do horror / zombies... the Creepers and Husks in Mass Effect and the Descendants in Uncharted: Drake's Fortune were bad enough, and we all know how tame they are). Somebody told me the ending to the first Bioshock and, as such, I've never felt the need to play the franchise. Funny how a tiny sentence, a spoiler or a tease, can do that!

Edited on by RogerRoger

"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."

PSN: GDS_2421
Making It So Since 1987

Th3solution

@RogerRoger Great mini review there and I can agree with you wholeheartedly. The epilogue or second ending with the son taking revenge was the icing on the cake. And I can agree with you the journey getting to those final epic moments was a bit arduous.
I won’t rehash anything more than to say I think your thoughts are valid. As a further example, I did try to play Undead Nightmare, which as far as DLC goes was very well done, but after a few hours into it, I didn’t feel inclined to stay with it after having experienced the original game’s completion, and I certainly haven’t played the full game again, nor do I desire to. Now to be fair, my personal preference is not to replay games and I don’t do it very often, even NG+ modes. Shadow of the Colossus I’m replaying on PS4 now is one of the first in a long time that I am enjoying experiencing a replay of.

I expect RDR2 to definitely be heavy on the online component and I just hope the emphasis there does not detract from the single player campaign. If R* can evolve a little and make the story a solid and meaningful narrative throughout as you outlined, then we will surely have a potentially transcendent game on our hands.

As far as the other PS3 games I listed, you’ll have less of an issue with padding in the story on those. Those 3 story endings just came to mind as ones that stuck with me from the last gen.
Brothers is only a 4 hr game so there is little room for padding. It’s pretty fun too. The gameplay is unique.
Bioshock: Infinite, although related to Bioshock, can be enjoyed as a story that is pretty much separate and all it’s own, so even knowing the ending of the first game you can still get a solid experience from B:I and one with a very impactful conclusion all it’s own, and is about a 15 hr commitment. But a word of caution — In retrospect, B:I’s story may not be quite as interesting to someone from outside the U.S. because it is occurs in a fictional and strange early 1900s America that has cultural references and subtle nods to our history that may be more meaningful to us ‘mericans, I don’t know.
As for The Last of Us, .... well, what can I say more than what had been said a million times about that game. And at this point, it’s probably a minor miracle if you haven’t had the story spoiled for you. I will say that I am also far from a horror fan. I don’t like scary games in general. I have liked The Walking Dead and I surprisingly liked Until Dawn, but beyond those, I don’t play all these zombie and horror games. The game has its share of gruesome infected enemies and some jump scares and very creepy heart pounding encounters, but it never seems gratuitous. The horror or zombie type moments are only a part of the overall narrative. The story (about 20 hr commitment) is more about the characters, their relationships and development. The post apocalyptic setting is very fleshed out but for me, that’s not what I enjoyed the most, rather it was the story and the epic conclusion. Of course, since this is the PS3 thread, I would say the remastered PS4 version would be probably a better experience. I don’t know, since I played it on PS3 and like I said, I don’t replay games typically.

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

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