Topic: Games you've recently beat

@JohnnyShoulder @Th3solution Don't play Odyssey. It pretty much killed all my interest I still had for the series, and that's coming from someone who played all the games since the first one in 2007. Ghost of Tsushima is basically what modern Assassin's Creed games should be, but fail to. Ghost is a great game!

(This is probably the best advice anyone has given you this year)

@Kidfried No argument here on Ghost of Tsushima. Great historically based open world RPG, for sure.

@Kidfried But I think Odyssey was great and it was my favorite game of the last generation, so maybe it's not the best advice and may be just your opinion.

Not looking to argue, but had to poke a bit of fun at your advice comment. Ghost of Tsushima was pretty good too though.

I personally think Odyssey is the best Assassin's Creed game ever made and I've played all of them except for Origins, Valhalla and the Chronicles titles. The level of freedom in this game is just impeccable. You do have to follow the main story for a while but then the game truly opens up. You can e.g. go to Athens and do some quests for some historical figures such as Sokrates or take your ship and sail the sea and explore the islands. Most islands and areas in general have interesting things to do there, e.g. there's one place where you have to battle a minotaur, one where you participate in gladiator battles, one where you're exploring a spooky forest with futuristic-looking structures, one where you're fighting pirates and so on. It just feels like a living and breathing world with tons of things to do in it, the immersion is just something else.

The characters are great and likeable, Kassandra is easily the best AC protagonist since Ezio. There are a lot of memorable events throughout the story and it's just a great package overall. There's definitely a lot of padding as well, but I just love the gameplay loop in general that it didn't bother me. I obviously didn't do exactly everything in the game, but I did go for the Platinum trophy and it felt very satisfying attaining it at about 80 hours of playtime. I ended up clocking at 120 hours of playtime in total including the DLCs, which are just massive and absolutely worth getting as well.

It's a suitable game for those looking for a long experience but not if you're looking for a short experience. Different strokes for different folks.

I beat Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep yesterday and I can see why everyone says this was the best DLC for Borderlands 2. It was a joy to play and it wrapped up the story of BL2 beautifully.

It is basically more Borderlands 2 but the added Dungeon and Dragons flavor to it did make it unique and refreshing and it's easy to see why Gearbox decided to sell this one as a standalone for Tiny Tina's Wonderland but if you are expecting this one to be drastically different then Borderlands 2 it isn't. It will be interesting to see what they take from this game and incorporate It into Tiny Tina's Wonderland.

As for difficulty it's not to hard enemies are scaled down for the stand alone so if you never got around to playing the game on BL2 due to not being high enough level or never playing BL2 but are Intrested in Dragon's Keep this is a perfect way to play it.

If you do everything the first play through takes about 30 hours or so and once you finish it the first time you unlock the next level of difficulty which gives you better loot drops as in the case with games like this. There is a raid boss too if you are interested in grabbing some friends for that as well.

In the end this game isn't to much of a departure from BL2 but it is unique to stand on its own and as a setup to Tiny Tina's Wonderland.

Just finished Guardians of the Galaxy and really enjoyed it… maybe my favourite Marvel game ever actually (Spider-man didn’t do it for me like it did most people).

Got like 4 trophies left, 3 combat specific one where I have to kill a certain enemy using a certain guardian and I didn’t get all of Star Lords outfits. So I’ll chip away at them in the background while I start something new. Probably gonna start 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim tomorrow and I’m going in with very little idea of what to expect.

@colonelkilgore I need to finish 13 Sentinels, so maybe I’ll join in. It’s definitely unique and unlike anything you’ve probably ever played. Unfortunately, there’s a large emphasis on narrative and much less on gameplay 😬
But @johncalmc is a big fan. And we all know his impeccable taste. 🧐

@Th3solution yeah and that is giving me concern that I won’t click with it tbh… I’m just hoping that it’s so unique that the ‘new car smell’ will get me through the playthrough before I start to miss some hardcore action.

How far through it did you get before you took a break?

@colonelkilgore I’ve only made it through the first 5 hrs or so. The game opens up and lets you take a very personalized order with which to play the story sections and the battle gameplay sections. And that’s about where I dropped off because there were a lot of options and I got analysis paralysis. But the good news is that you can do the combat at your own pace whenever you get a little bored of the story bits, so there’s a lot of customization there.
There are a lot of characters, and the story is fairly helter-skelter (by design) and so I’ve had a little trouble getting fully invested in any of them. Once I start to piece together the timeline and story then I think it’ll be easier to stay with.
The combat is actually kinda fun, but it’s not a hugely complex battle system. However, I do like it and although I’m not very far in, it’s not too hard.
On the positive — The platinum is fairly easy, supposedly. You have to complete all the storylines and finish all the battles and then mop up a few minor left over ones, but nothing is missable according to the internet.

@Th3solution sounds really interesting, have no idea quite how interesting it’ll be in practice but I’ll be making a start on it in around an hour. I’ll definitely post some thoughts later and will tag you in them in case you’re interested 👍

I recently beat Days gone in PS5 with 80hrs and platinum and I must say is one of my favorite games in the last 3 years and despite all the glitches and bugs I had a blast. I REALLY hope they make Days Gone 2 after all.

@colonelkilgore For sure. Let me know how you get along with it.

Just finished Dante's Inferno and it was honestly shorter than I expected. It only took me 6 hours to get through it. Overall, I thought the game was okay. The mechanics of the game are basically that of the classic God of War games and it feels just as good to hack and slash like in GoW. The major problem though is the atrocious level design and being able to die in one hit by most environmental stuff. I had to reduce the difficulty level to the lowest throughout most of my playthrough and I'm glad that I did because I started to at least enjoy the game somewhat because of that.

The story was genuinely forgettable and not really that interesting. The whole goal is to basically save your wife who was killed because of your actions. You murdered innocent people, not to mention slept with other women and so the whole story just felt so stupid. Why go through all this effort just for one person who you betrayed and didn't even want you back? It was definitely not even close to the scale of the GoW stories. On top of that, the boss fights were just underwhelming. GoW is known for having massive and powerful bosses, but here you're just fighting ones that are barely larger than you. Not to mention there was very little enemy variety and a lot of mini-boss fights were constantly reused.

The game started out good enough but after a few hours, it all went downhill. I'm just glad the game was only 6 hours long because I don't know how much I could've taken with it. It didn't help that the last area was basically a bunch of random challenges like protect innocents for X amount of time or kill enemies while in the air. It felt so out of place and some challenges were just frustrating.

I can't even believe the developer was planning on making a sequel to the game considering it ends with the words "To be continued..". If there's one game that doesn't need a sequel, it's this one lol. Anyway, I'm glad that I've played it now at least but I definitely wouldn't recommend it to people.

@LtSarge sounds like a bit of a trudge for you mate. I actually have it pencilled in to play next year, once I’ve finished off the old God of War games. I do find it difficult to summon up the motivation to play them too mind you. Once I’ve finished them and Dante’s Inferno I also plan on playing the original Devil May Cry trilogy at some point… hopefully they won’t be quite the drag to actually get started on though.

@LtSarge I thought Dante’s Inferno was fantastic for about the first half, then it just drags and runs out of ideas. Also, it really is undeniably a “God of War clone”, though I really liked the light and dark power dynamic. Given the material, what with the different levels of hell and all that, I just think there was so much more that could have been done, particularly in the latter half of the game. So, yeah, I think I’m pretty much in total agreement with your assessment!

@colonelkilgore if you haven’t played the original God of War games, they are still fantastic action games and well worth playing in my opinion. They contain one of the best yet most under-utilized mechanics I’ve encountered in games, where how you deal with an enemy nets you a different reward i.e. health, magic or experience orbs. The recent Doom touched on this as well (really to a more impactful degree than GOW). I always felt that little bit of player agency went such a long way to connecting me to the action.

@Jimmer-jammer yeah I’ve slowly been making my way through them for the last 18 months mate. Played (& plat’d) God of War, God of War: Chains of Olympus, God of War: Ghost of Sparta & God of War 2… and I have God of War: Ascention and God of War 3 left to play. I do end up quite enjoying them once I’ve started them but I find myself making any excuse not to start one for some reason (I was scheduled to start Ascension in October and I still haven’t started it).

@colonelkilgore Yeah I don't know, I feel like I was always in a mood to play the God of War games compared to Dante's Inferno. I had to practically force myself to play Dante these past few days because I was completely unmotivated. But the thing is, I've been wanting to play a God of War clone for quite some time now ever since I finished up the GoW series years ago. It was really cool to find out that this game existed because I don't mind clones as long as they're done well. This one had great combat, but yeah the level design left much to be desired.

With regards to the original DMC trilogy, the first two games are not that great either in all honesty. The third game is loved by the fan base and I found it to be pretty good. It's definitely the best game out of the trilogy. After all, that's when the series started to establish the identity that it's known for today.

@Jimmer-jammer Exactly, the second half felt really underwhelming compared to the first half. It's like they ran out of ideas halfway through production and just threw together a bunch of things quickly. The fact that the game is only 6 hours long while a typical GoW game is around 10 hours just speaks for itself. They tried to cash in on GoW's popularity but ultimately fell short due to lack of ideas, resources and honestly, a vision. So yeah I agree, there was so much more they could've done with that game.

@Qu1n0n3z Exactly my opinion on the game. Probably the best Sony first party game I played in the past few years, and it could have been so much better still. It's a game that screams for a sequel.

Just finished Forza Horizon 5 story mode and got into the Hall of Fame. Absolutely phenomenal game! I played through it from beginning to end, which took about 15 hours, on Xbox Cloud Gaming and it was such a smooth experience.

Anyway, this is definitely one of the best Forza Horizon games that I've played. I loved the way they did story mode this time around by having expeditions where you could actually explore the environments instead of just drive by them in races. I wish there would've been more of these though because as you get deeper into the story, a lot of the events are just regular races.

I do have to say though that the cars felt easier to handle this time around and I don't know if it were just me. Like I had a much easier time pulling off drifts compared to past Forza Horizon games. It definitely feels like the developer has improved upon the mechanics and that's great!

Another thing that I really liked about this game is the sheer variety of biomes. There are deserts, volcanic areas, woods, jungles, urban areas, plains and so on. Being able to drive through all of them was really nice, this definitely felt like the most varied Forza Horizon in terms of environments.

The overall progression was great, but one gripe I had with it was the cars. Throughout my 15 hours with the game, I never felt like changing the two cars I primarily used: one for off-road racing and one for regular racing. I feel like there should've been a better focus on making the player receive constantly better cars over time, but maybe that's not what people want? I can totally understand most people wanting to just have the best cars right from the get-go, but considering how there are over 500 different cars in the game, it felt kinda wasteful to only use two throughout the entire campaign.

All in all though, this was such a fun experience and I'm going to keep playing it and do more races until I feel like I'm done with it. It's such a good game and easily one of the best titles I've played this year.

Also finished all the puzzles in Picross S3 on Switch after 56 hours of playtime. Been playing it for probably a year now so it feels great to finally be done with it. I think this is my favourite one thus far since it was the first game to introduce Colour Picross, which is such an amazing addition to the series. I tend to go through the puzzles quite fast but in this mode I'll actually take my time because it's much more in-depth now that you have to take into consideration both numbers and colours. It's definitely become my favourite mode, that's for sure.

I'll be taking a break from the series for now but I'm definitely interested in buying the Picross Sega Edition that they released a while ago as my next Picross title to play. I'm much more interested in Picross games that have actual themes instead of just generic pictures, so I'm very much looking forward to playing it in the future!