Topic: Games you've recently beat

@colonelkilgore see when it comes to a series like Metal Gear I'd be okay with it playing like garbage as long as the story stacks up so we're at opposite ends there. If you're gameplay first I think MGR is pretty okay.

Edit: Apart from the last boss which is absolutely terrible on every level.

Finally started Returnal after the update. Couldn't put it down. A masterpiece in my opinion.

Harkens back to when games were were both difficult and yet extremely fun to play. Rather than just on rails, narrative driven, hand holding/oversimplified drivel.

Genuinely wanted to play and see all three endings and was bummed to see it over. I do think more challenge modes beyond the one daily challenge would have been a nice addition.

Aside from that it's incredible to see the end product of such a drastic transition from what the developer had focused on to this point evolved into a new genre yet still keeping some of those previous game play elements.

Game of the year for sure. In a game industry focused on repetitive uninspired sequels, live service trash, and profit driven remasters, more new and interesting works like Returnal are desperately needed.

@johncalmc I do get you, Metal Gear Solid's narrative is so rich and layered that it would be a black-hole without it... I absolutely loved MGSV though... and it's story tbh regardless if the hate it received in that department.

I'll look forward to finding out how Rising lives up to the name.

@Keith_Zissou I got a kiss this time 😉

So, first time I heard this during my first playthru of MGS3 it caused me to smile at the sheer 60’s James Bondy-ness of it. Didn’t necessarily think it was a great song or anything… but the more I heard it, it started to grow on me until this week when it turned up out of the blue and rocked my world for 3 minutes.

@ Ralizah

Kind of. The game has this Persona-lite system where you can spend time with your classmates, and then near the end of the game you can choose who to go on a "date" with. The character I picked had the strongest connection with Rean, and I like to think they were madly in love. It certainly seemed like they were into each other, anyway. More so than the busty ladies swooning over him!

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy I think if I'd attempted ToCS 2 right after I would have completely burnt out and never finished it, but I reckon enough time has now passed to get back into the series. I've been enjoying lots of Ys this year (and oddly haven't burnt out on them), so that's been my Falcom fix.

@RogerRoger no need to apologise bud, it was a real interesting read… actually I should be the one to apologise as I originallyintended to write:

“… oh and to your first point, Kojima had to have written (or at least conceived the treatment of) 3 & 4 together right?”

… rather than what I actually wrote (2 & 3)… but I’ve watched a couple of videos on it since and it doesn’t seem like they were conceived together after all.

What I would say in terms of the info you provided… I felt that Raiden becoming Cyborg Ninja was a very natural progression for him given that he was passed the katana at the end of 2. I’d be surprised if him becoming the next Cyborg Ninja wasn’t part of the plan all along… but I am a relative noob to the subject and you seem to have done a fair bit of research on it over the years to be fair 🤖🥷.

@colonelkilgore It's not that I didn't like MGSV. It's just that 4 was so good that the bar was incredibly high, so it was almost inevitable unless it somehow was equal. I might enjoy it more if I played it today without much in the way of expectations.

MGS4 was my first. I did play one of the earlier ones back in the day, but I never finished it, so 4 was my first true experience in my opinion. It's at worst one of my top 3 games, if not my #1, so I guess it's partially a timing thing for the both of us.

I stupidly sold my PS3, so that's not an option right now. I regret selling it obviously as I kept several games, and even a couple of them were unfinished (Final Fantasy 13 and Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions). I've gotten the urge to play MGS4 again on multiple occasions though, so I may end up picking one up on eBay someday (carefully shopping to make sure I get a good one of course). I never did replay it once they added trophies for it, so there's that too.

@KilloWertz mate if you enjoyed it that much I’d definitely suggest you pick up a PS3 and play the whole series. I can’t tell you how many times I thought to myself while playing 4 that ‘I am so glad I decided to play the preceding games first before playing this…” there are just so many pay-offs.

I dusted off my old PS3 a couple of years ago and it’s gotten a fair bit of use since tbh… and while my PS3 backlog is still bigger than my PS5 one, that is only going to continue (at least for the next year or so).

I just wrapped up Quantum Break and it was such an excellent game! I think in terms of gameplay, it definitely surpassed Alan Wake. Being able to use time powers along with standard shooting was so much fun, the powers actually reminded me a lot of the ones you have in the inFAMOUS games. The story was great as I just love the concept of time travel after having played the phenomenal Steins;Gate. Moreover, I found the characters to be incredibly likeable and memorable. Like I barely remember any of the side characters from Alan Wake, but I remember the majority of them in Quantum Break simply because they were so well-written and unique. Could also be because of the great cast of actors they had as well! I genuinely loved seeing the actors who played Charlie from Lost and Littlefinger from Game of Thrones. They certainly nailed that part when going for the TV show experience, of which it is important to have many memorable characters. I also enjoyed watching the TV show-like episode at the end of each act as it broke up the action and gave you something enjoyable and high-quality to watch before the next act. The production value for these episodes are just insane considering they were only made for the game. I would love to watch an actual TV show based on this IP.

So all in all, this was an excellent game and it surpassed Alan Wake in almost every way. I just feel like AW is more iconic compared to QB, but other than that this was another fantastic game from Remedy. Would definitely love to see a sequel to this game in the future considering that minor cliffhanger at the end.

@LtSarge I've not played Quantum Break but recently finished Alan Wake Remastered and was quite underwhelmed. The gameplay was the underwhelming part rather than the story though but I agree that most of the characters were definitely not that memorable. There was an attempt to break AW up like a TV show as well which worked quite well, but the recaps seemed a little unnecessary as, if like me, you were playing it straight through then you were already up to speed

@Kidfried Not yet! Been playing through these games in release order since the beginning of this year so next up will be Control. Got the Ultimate Edition on PS4 and everything so I'm very excited to delve into it down the line.

Have you played it and if so, what are your thoughts on it?

@render Yeah, Alan Wake did also feel like a TV show but Remedy goes a step further this time with Quantum Break by actually having 20 minute episodes after each act that look into events and other characters that aren't in the main game. Really cool stuff, I definitely like the structure of first playing the game and then watching a TV episode. Although it did mean that you'd have to put away several hours of your time during each session in order to get your "fill" so to speak.

If you think the gameplay of Alan Wake was underwhelming, then I think you're going to like Quantum Break's gameplay more. Have you played the inFAMOUS games? If so, then I think you're going to be familiar with this game's addition of time powers. You can e.g. create a time bubble at an enemy, shoot at it and the bullets will stack up and when time is unfrozen it will create an explosion. Other examples include dashing quickly, sprinting while everything is slowed down, creating a time shield that protects you from danger while you can heal up and so on. There's still a lot of shooting in the game and there's still not a lot of enemy variety, but I think the superpowers more than makes up for it if you ask me.

@LtSarge That sounds really interesting. I’ve played a little of the first infamous game but only probably got 1/3rd in. I can’t remember why I didn’t get any further but I did enjoy what I played. Remedy’s think definitely seems to be having some additional thing along side shooting which definitely adds a different angle to the gameplay. I found it frustrating with AW because it felt like I was always juggling between two things, both of which didn’t quite work well enough, but QB sounds like half way between that and Control.

Would love to play QB but as it’s not on PlayStation I haven’t got around to it yet.

@render I'm sure Quantum Break will be released on PlayStation in the foreseeable future considering Alan Wake has lost its 360 console exclusivity and Remedy seems to be going for a multi-platform approach now so it's looking likely that QB will eventually be remastered. Although I do have to wonder how they're going to pull off the TV show episodes this time because you have to download roughly 80 GB of data on Xbox if you want to watch these offline. If you're online though they can just be streamed directly to your console.

@LtSarge I really hope they do put it out on PS. Remedy seem really keen on keeping their history alive, and it’s great where they are linking them together to create a universe.

I’m also looking forward to seeing what’s next from them. I’d happily take another Control but would also welcome something different as long as they keep the gameplay good.

@LtSarge @render I could be wrong (hope I am as I’d like to play it) but I seem to remember reading that while Remedy got the rights back to Alan Wake, Microsoft kept the Quantum Break rights.

@LtSarge Control is really good. It’s one of my favorites. It’s the first and only Remedy game I’ve played. It took a little getting used to their unique style of presentation, but I love the X-files vibe with the slightly twisted storytelling and the integrated live-action. The gameplay is fantastic too, very kinetic and novel in the way you can use some of the powers. The only thing might be that it pushes the PS4 to its limits apparently and there are frame rate issues when the action gets heavy. It was super smooth and beautiful on PS5 though, not to mention it’s one of the better DualSense utilizing games with some really nice haptic feedback and adaptive triggers.

@colonelkilgore Ah well, that's too bad. Hopefully Microsoft will change their minds and sell the rights to them in the future.

@Th3solution I was really excited to play Control back when it came out in 2019 I think, but then I read about the awful performance on PS4 and decided to hold off on getting it. I recently bought the Ultimate Edition that comes with all the patches on disc so hopefully it runs a bit better on base PS4 now. It definitely seems like their most ambitious game so far and I can't wait to eventually play it.

@LtSarge Looks like there’s a decent chance it might be the GameClub game for the month.

Detroit: Become Human

I said I was highly enjoying the game after reaching roughly the halfway point, and it still maintained that for the most part through the end.

I did have at least one fairly big issue with it though. There was a point near the end of Kara's story where you got the option to choose to give the bus tickets back and then take a boat to cross the border. It's pretty messed up that doing the right thing actually penalizes you in the end. I know technically that happens sometimes, but this is a video game, and it was pretty annoying that they gave you no option to be able to keep all 3 alive if you take the boat across. At least 1 of the I believe 4 options could have allowed for that, which ended up costing me about an hour and a half of playtime because of that and the PS5 not auto-uploading game saves for PS4 games. At least not for me, which was annoying to realize multiple times.

Still, aside from that and maybe a couple of minor things that I am able to shrug off since the story was still pretty good overall, I would give it a very solid 8/10. One last thing, I thought having Chloe change over the course of the game was a nice touch.