Topic: Games you've recently beat

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II - not a patch on the original but it was worth a play. The only thing I can think of is that Lucasfilm were already deep into negotiations with Disney at the time to buy the Star Wars rights… as there just seemed to be very little effort put into the game. Luckily it still plays well… as the mechanics were already fully developed from the original. Seemed significantly shorter, levels were narrower and the combat less varied. Still, I really like Starkiller as a character, he’s 10x the character of half of the new lot Disney introduced.

@LtSarge Condemned Criminal Origins is one of my all time favorite games. I have many fond memories of it, specifically how I got an Xbox 360 and the game in the first place. I was a freshman in high school, and my family never really had money, so vacations and getting gifts was hardly a thing. My mom used to pick me up from school every day, and I remember getting in the car and she told me to look in the glovebox. When I opened it up there was Perfect Dark Zero and Condemned Criminal Origins. I was absolutely shocked, and freaking out. When we got home, my mom already had the Xbox 360 set up in my room with Call of Duty 2 on the start screen. How my mother managed to afford the console and those three games is beyond me, but it’s a memory I’ll never forget.

Anyway, Condemned Criminal Origins is top tier, and those mannequins in the mall still haunt me to this day. That’s the gist of this long reply. Lol.

@Kraven That's such a nice story! It's when you least expect a gift that makes it that much sweeter when you receive one.

@Kraven Great story dude, made me feel all nice and fuzzy inside!

Unleashed difficulty done on Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2, so just the two mop-up trophies left… one for a very involved kill (looks like I have to use every single move available on one enemy) and another for using every combo. I’ll try and get them done too before starting Dead Space 3.

Finally finished The Witcher 3 and 262 hours of play time gave me the platinum for the base game and I also finished both DLCs. It is astonishing how well crafted this game felt; such an insane amount of meaningful content. Sure, there are activities that get tedious and repetitive, but it took me a long time before I started ignoring loot quests and I kept up with secondary quests and contracts until the very end of Blood & Wine (which was phenomenal, by the way). I loved that it ended with the missus coming to the vineyard and all was calm (I'm probably one of the few who romanced Triss... got a thing for redheads).
The voice acting was a bit uneven, though, especially the NPC chatter... some of them really grated and got under my skin. The main cast and most of the secondary characters were pretty decent, though there were two standouts for me: Zoltan and Regis. The voice actors for those two characters managed to breathe so much life into them that every scene and every dialogue was pure joy.

Now I shall turn my attention to some shorter and more focused experiences, starting with Until Then

@Malaise Yeah, it's a spectacularly good game and arguably one of the best of its type. It absolutely deserved all the accolades it received. I also think Blood & Wine is one of the best expansions I've ever played. I was feeling slightly fatigued at the point where I started it and it refreshed me and I can't remember a single game that managed to bring me back after I've started to tire of it. Unfortunately, I did rush through it a bit towards the end and I think my experience with it would have been better if there had been a break between the base game and the DLC, like I would have if I'd played it at release. I think this is one of the few games I would have picked up again after a solid break (I'm typically bad at that, which is why I endeavor to focus almost exclusively on one game at a time and play it until I'm done, either by finishing it or tiring of it).

Secret Agent Clank

I really wanted to like this more then I did but by god was it infuriating by the end. I'd rather play the 2016 remake a hundred times over then touch this again.

Makes Size Matters look like a grand ol' time in comparison!

@HallowMoonshadow if size matters is bottom of the barrel RC, then SAC is bottom of the bottom. Hell, it even rhymes with cack which is pretty funny.

@Yousef- SAC is bottom of the bottom? Shirly it is at the other end?

@JohnnyShoulder shirly? I never knew her.

@Yousef-

Roger.

I just finished TLoZ: Echoes of Wisdom. It was a phenomenal game from start to finish. I managed to get all of the echoes, stamps, and side quests complete. The last two dungeons were pretty challenging, and the final boss was great and intense. With that said, I have a few nitpicks about the final boss fight that I won’t share here due to spoilers, but nonetheless it was a fantastic experience overall.

I’m going to start Silent Hill 2 Remake later this evening when I get off work. This will be my first ever Silent Hill game so I’m very excited.

Finally played through Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course! I played the main game back in 2022 with a friend, and I finally convinced him to come back to the game and do the DLC. I think it was very much on par with the main game and a delightful finish to what I already considered to be a terrific game. The new bosses are really fun (except for that one cow level, which was just endless suffering for me and I'm glad my friend was able to beat it in the end). I'm happy they did away with the Run & Gun levels which we started ignoring eventually anyway as they were just... not very good. I was surprised by how easy it felt to jump back into it after such a long time. The art is gorgeous as to be expected. If anyone played and enjoyed Cuphead previously but hasn't yet touched the DLC, I would say it's very much worth going back to. I do think I would enjoy this game a lot less if I had played it in single-player however. Having another person there just gives you that much extra of a buffer in case you're having trouble with a specific part (like that god forsaken cow).

Oh, and the main theme of the DLC is ridiculously catchy. "Cuphead... Mugman... and Chalice make a deeeaal" has stuck in my head ever since finishing it.

Dead Space 3 - obviously not as good as the original (I’m still to play the second as I’m saving it for a milestone plat as it’s notoriously difficult) but pretty good. I was hating it initially, as the initial levels and environments just feels so trudgy but the last third was cool and the climax felt like a pretty satisfying crescendo.

It’s a hell of a platinum though… I now have to mop this playthrough up for 100% and then three further playthroughs, all on Hard but with different modes (classic, pure survival and hardcore… the last of which with a bonus that your save is deleted if you die 😅). Crazy *******s!

@colonelkilgore gratz on beating DS3. Yeah I heard it toned down the horror aspect which at the time may have been great for me but even my scardy self from back then recognized this is probably not an ideal first exposure to the franchise.

How’s the diff rating for plat?

@Yagami yeah the combat is what drove away from it back in 2016 when I had to make a choice between it and dark souls 3. The latter quite literally influenced my gaming future for the better so I was glad.

@Yagami I greatly enjoyed the combat, so would love for them to continue making games like that. Not everything needs to be an unforgiving souls-like

@FuriousMachine it was me who made the souls comment. I doubt @Yagami was alluding to it. Sorry for the misdirection 😅