Topic: Games you've recently beat

@RogerRoger Yeah, I have the other two on Steam so I’ll get round to them at some point. I have so many other games to play first though!

@nessisonett I don't remember much of the second Max Payne game but thought the third was brilliant. Really like the South American setting which felt a bit different at the time.

And the recent 25 (I think) anniversary video Remedy dropped for the series was kinda cool!

@RogerRoger Oh really? I may have missed all that at the time or just not cared enough about any of it to stop from playing the game. I suppose it was a change for the series, but it did come a number of years after the previous game. Plus you ain't gonna please all of the gamers all of the time.

@JohnnyShoulder @RogerRoger I think I remember complaints that they made him bald.

@RogerRoger @nessisonett IIRC there was quite a good reason for why he is bald in the game.

Won't be talking about every game I've finished since I left but I thought I'd at least write down all the games I've finished this summer.

Bayonetta 2
Trails of Cold Steel IV (it took me roughly 130 hours to finish it, absolutely phenomenal game!)
Ghost Recon Future Soldier
Shadow of the Tomb Raider (+ DLC)
BioShock
Observer
Devil May Cry 5
Steins;Gate (bloody loved this game!)
Resident Evil 2 (PS1)
Jak 3
Little Nightmares (+ DLC)
Persona 5 Royal (it took me almost 150 hours to finish this one, another phenomenal game!)
The Walking Dead: A New Frontier
Sea of Solitude
Man of Medan
Fallout 3 (+ DLC)
The Walking Dead: Michonne
The Medium
Mafia: Definitive Edition
ReCore
Psychonauts
A Plague Tale: Innocence

Overall I think this has been a great summer in terms of gaming for me as I've cleared out a lot of titles from my backlog. Fallout 3 for example has been in my backlog since 2016 and the only thing I had left to do in that game was to do the final mission plus the DLCs. My favourite game this summer is easily Steins;Gate. It's been quite some time since I've found a series that has truly resonated with me, I absolutely love it and can't wait to play the other games in the series.

@RogerRoger I honestly think it's the best Tomb Raider game I've played so far. I've only played the PS4 games (2013, Rise and Shadow) though so that might change. But yeah, Shadow was absolutely incredible. I really like that there were hub worlds where you could walk around, interact with people and take on side quests. Not to mention that you would gain access to the DLC challenge tombs this way, which made them feel like a part of the overall story instead of DLC. Regarding the DLC tombs though, I thought most of them were very interesting. The one where you have to ride a raft down a river filled with traps is probably my favourite one. I'm really glad that I got to experience all of them naturally through story progression instead of playing all of them back-to-back after already finishing the game.

Can I also just say how badass Lara was in this game? Taking on jaguars, hiding in the forestry and taking down enemies stealthily is seriously so cool. My favourite aspect of the combat (which was also in Rise towards the end) is when you're underwater and you can swim up like a shark and pull an enemy down with you. Then hearing the confusion from the rest of the enemies as they are slowly eliminated one after the other was just so satisfying. Not to mention towards the end of the game where Lara has lost everything and she basically breaks. When she rose out of the water and you could only see her silhouette and the enemies feared her so much that they had to call in a helicopter to take her down. My god, I've never been so giddy playing a TR game until that moment. It was truly the culmination of everything that has happened so far in the trilogy.

@RogerRoger Is that the most recent one? I felt the same but lasted a whole lot less longer than you. One of the perks of having PS Now is that you can try games you wouldn't normally without even having to download them.

@RogerRoger Yep, it all works the same as it does normally, only that at times the resolution and frame rate can take a big hit if streaming. Any if you play a PS3 game, you get to go on the PS3 front screen. Which was a strange for me at first, having never owned a PS3!

Just finished Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight on PS4 after 12 hours of playtime. Pretty good game overall but it's severely lacking in content compared to Persona 4: Dancing All Night. There's no actual story mode like in P4DAN, instead there's a social mode where you interact with the Phantom Thieves member just like confidants in Persona 5 and I honestly thought this was a cool idea, albeit not a good substitute for the story mode. Not to mention that the requirements for unlocking each member's level was kinda arbitrary, for example unlocking challenge modifiers or using different accessories/costumes in the songs you play. It's just not that compelling to unlock them and now that I've finished the game, it's pretty much just grinding from here on out in order to unlock the rest of the social ranks.

Second, there were no remixes of P5 songs that I really liked. P4DAN has so many that I still listen to even years after I finished the game because they're just so good. The list of songs in general is sorely lacking, especially now that Persona 5 Royal has come out with several new excellent tracks like Take Over. Granted, Royal came out after P5DIS but I wish they could've released an enhanced version of the game and added the rest of the songs. Considering how light the game already is in terms of content, more songs would've definitely been appreciated.

As a stand-alone game though, it's a great one to play after finishing up P5. It helps you interact and bond more with the characters you've come to love and you get to enjoy more of the stellar soundtrack of P5. It's just a good time overall and if you can find it for a cheap price then I'd still recommend it even if it isn't as good as P4DAN.

I'm still going to grind for the rest of the social ranks now as well as go for the Platinum trophy since I've gotten so many trophies anyway and it seems like a fairly straightforward one.

@LtSarge Thanks for the thoughts on P5DiS. I’ve had it in the backlog for a while now and it just took me a long time to finally finish the base game P5 that the dance rhythm game has become a orphan in my library. I enjoyed the P4 and P3 dance games and like you say, I appreciated the attempts at an actual legit storyline in P4DAN, but I thought the rationale and narrative concept was a little flakey. It was mindless fun though and kept me entertained, even though I had to just kind of roll with it on the core ideas and logic of the narrative.

The P3 version - Dancing in Moonlight, was also enjoyable, but had a much shallower storyline and sounds like is probably on par with Dancing in Starlight.

If nothing else, this has reminded me I need to wipe the dust off the Vita and play DiS because there are a scarcity of compelling rhythm games in my library and they serve as fantastic relaxing palate cleanser games.

Edit: Btw, you being a Persona and Jrpg fan, have you played Persona 5 Strikers? I’ve heard good things and it also is supposedly a great way to extend the P5 vibe and spend more time with the characters as another sort of sequel to the base game.
I’ve not played it yet. It’s on a list of possible plays down the road.

Just finished the ‘story’ and liberated every location on Just Cause 3… I might have to write a review on this one (which’ll be my first) as it just does so much right but it remains so underrated and under-played.

Anyway, on to the collectibles and the challenges… and then, maybe I’ll try do the game justice in written form. Just the ultimate playground of destruction!

@Th3solution I agree that the story in P4DAN felt a bit weird and tacked on whenever they tried to connect it with the rhythm game portions. But the thing that I really liked about it is that we got an actual sequel to Persona 4. Not like the Persona 4 Arena games where the story was severely lacking, but an actual story with character development and new characters like Kanami Mashita (who gets referenced in multiple games). It just felt nice revisiting the Persona 4 universe and seeing the Investigation Team once more.

Which is actually a good segue to the next part of your post regarding Persona 5 Strikers. That game is also an actual sequel to Persona 5, just like P4DAN was to P4. I haven't played through that game yet, but I did buy it on the Switch and have played the first 10 minutes just to see what it's like. And yeah, it has the exact same feel of a regular Persona game with the difference being that the combat is mostly real-time. I probably won't play it anytime soon since I've just finished two Persona games, but from what I've seen and heard, it's absolutely worth getting.

Have you already played Persona 3 btw? I've still got a couple of more side games to play in the Persona series, but I'm mostly looking forward to playing a potential remaster/remake of Persona 3. I feel like there's no optimal way of playing that game now. You either have the PS2 version that comes with extra content and a 3D overworld to move around in, or the PSP version which is mostly a visual novel. I don't like playing Persona games on the TV (hence why I bought Persona 5 Strikers on Switch) but the PSP version is too dumbed down from the PS2 one for me to want to play it. The optimal solution would be a remaster/remake of Persona 3: FES on Switch and I really hope Atlus makes it happen.

Finished Final Fantasy 7 Remake on PS5 over last weekend. It was my second time playing the game and I loved it all over again. Really looking forward to playing Part 2 if it comes out before PS6.

Wasn't a big fan of the Yuffie DLC when I tried it, so I stopped playing it for now and moved on. I'll go back to it at some point and see if I like it better then, but most of the side stuff annoyed me (unlike the main game's side quests). Trying to beat Chadley in the board game was impossible for me, and I'm guessing you have to wait to beat the VR challenge to get the summon since I died really quick most every attempt. I guess it didn't help that I'm not a fan of how different her combat is compared to the main game, which allows you to play however you want, but it seems like you can only play defensive with Yuffie.

@LtSarge Yea, I played P3 on PS2 and remember liking it, but I don’t remember a lot of details. If a remaster came out it would be tempting to play it again since it’s often felt to be the best of the bunch by enthusiasts. Honestly I remember the setting and visuals to be really bland, certainly in comparison to P5 which has the best art style of almost any PS4 game IMO. It might be worth my getting a Switch if that P3 remaster drops!

Just finished Remember Me on PS3. What a wild ride this game has been! But this really is a weird one for me, it's one of the few (if not the only) games that has made me feel different about it each session I played it. At first I really liked the game because the gameplay is a mix between Batman Arkham combat and Uncharted platforming where you climb on buildings, which is really cool. But after an hour in the combat started getting really stale and it took until a couple of hours in before it became interesting again. Then I enjoyed it for a while before it became annoying again, and then it became fun once more, lol. The issue that keeps coming back is the game's "gimmick". You can customise what the buttons in combos do. For example, you have a combo of square, square, square, so you can assign the second square to give you health back and the third one to do more damage. It was hard for me to figure out the best way to assign the buttons because as you progressed through the game, it started introducing more difficult opponents and longer combo strings, which required different solutions. As a result, I would either find myself in a tough situation because I didn't have the appropriate buttons for the combos, or in a good situation because I finally unlocked the necessary buttons. While this mechanic sounds cool on paper, it just felt unnecessary. But I have to give the developer props for at least trying out new ideas.

To give some background about the game, the story takes place in 2084 "Neo-Paris" where humans have started harvesting memories from people rebelling against the government that they then sell to others. Memories are essentially a drug now where you want to be injected with good memories in order to get a high. I find this premise to be very fascinating and later on in the game, you can even enter others' memories and "remix" them in order to turn who were once your enemies into your allies. All of this honestly doesn't surprise me because Dontnod is the developer and anyone who's played Life is Strange and Tell Me Why will know that those games have rather interesting concepts as well.

But yeah, it's still crazy to me that Dontnod made a third-person beat 'em up game with Batman Arkham combat and Uncharted platforming. I think it's worth experiencing this game just for that alone. Even if the combat can get frustrating at times, the setting and the story are just so good. We simply don't get that many new IPs that deliver experimental AAA experiences anymore. So definitely check this one out if you have the chance.

@LtSarge I remember seeing a vid on this years ago… I could never remember what it was called though and therefore could never identify what it actually was I was looking for. I’m not ‘really’ a fan of Arkham combat but something about it appeals to me.

@colonelkilgore It's a very unique game considering there aren't that many that focus on the theme of memories in a futuristic setting. I honestly just wanted to see more of the world and the story, it's a very detailed game. But yeah, the gameplay isn't anything to write home about.

@LtSarge @colonelkilgore Yeah, a very accurate description of Remember Me. I quite liked it and I think it’s an under appreciated hidden gem, but I’m not sure everyone would like it and find it hard to recommend wholeheartedly. I think since I like third person action stealth so much that I tolerated the repetitiveness and the bland environments. But the game does some things that are unique and the core principles of memory stealing and sharing is a neat concept that would be nice to see done more. I’m glad there are others who have experienced the game because I think a lot of people wrote it off because of the lackluster reviews.

Just finished the PS5 version of A Plague Tale: Innocence. A very good PS5 upgrade, with some of the best usage of the DualSense features I've experienced so far by not using the adaptive triggers to create resistance. You end up feeling the haptic feedback in the RT. It basically pulsates whenever you hold it down to run or if you hold it down to fire whatever from your sling.

With that said, while it was a solid game through 15 of it's 16 story chapters (17 is a post-story chapter), the 16th chapter nearly ruined the game for me with an absurd difficulty/frustration spike. I hope they learned to keep it more balanced for the sequel.