Topic: Games you've recently beat

@KilloWertz Ah cool. I think I played the dlc some time after I'd beaten the main game, as I would have taken me close to the 100 hour mark to finish it, so would have needed a break from it.

Glad you went back to it and had a good time with it. It is very satisfying when that happens. Most of my games like that I have just remain in my gaming grave yard.

I'm in a similar position with Death Stranding, and not sure if I'll go back to it or not.

I finally beat The Dark Pictures: The Devil In Me. My co-op partner and I had been playing this on and off for about three months now, which for a six-hour story is quite the indictment I'd say. Even though I think Little Hope was quite bad, this game suffers from a way more cardinal sin. It's just... boring. The characters are uninteresting, the story takes too long to go anywhere and feels by the numbers and uninspired once it does and the gameplay at times just feels horrendous. The third person camera in this game is hard to properly control and the walking feels more stilted than ever. They introduced a new mechanic with an inventory, which just feels incredibly unintuitive when you're asked to utilise it in quick-time events. It's a shame. I think the story of H.H. Holmes could've been a fascinating setup for a game of this type, but they simply didn't pull it off. The intro is by far the best part about it, but like all of these games, over in about twenty minutes or so.

House of Ashes, in my humble opinion, still stands tall amongst them as the best entry by far. It's been a very mixed experience playing through the whole first season, but the co-op horror experience of it all is just simply unmatched. Mostly only because there's literally just no competition. I'm disappointed as well that there wasn't more of a climax to the Curator parts of the game, which I'd previously assumed were building up to a major narrative beat at the end of it all. Not really.

I'm still excitdd to see what they do with the next one as they've described it as a sci-fi The Thing, which sounds super up my alley. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Let's hope I'll not be fooled thrice as I don't know who I'd have to direct the blame at then. Maybe the universe?

@JohnnyShoulder Rare that I'm much faster playing a game than others, as I was probably around 30 hours when I beat it. Rounding up since obviously the game's clock isn't accurate.

Yeah, I like to finish as many games I start as I possibly can, but that obviously doesn't always work. The most satisfying was probably finishing Final Fantasy XIII earlier this year, a game that I've had a weird past with, but finally managed to finish ironically 13 years after starting it.

I'm in the same position as you with Death Stranding. Started it a think a year ago but never came close to finishing it. Not a big fan of the gameplay to be honest, although I did keep it just in case I get the urge to give it another chance.

@KilloWertz Yeah I just hit a brick wall (not literally) with game. I've got it on hold for now and shall see how I feel after I'm finished with Metaphor: Refantazio.

@PeaceSalad So, I'm guessing that's not your ringtone then?

As long as there's a way around the horrible gunplay, and obviously there is with V.A.T.S., then it's fine. Melee combat did bring back memories of me playing Oblivion and Skyrim, where I would basically circle around the enemies while fighting them to keep from getting hit (at least sometimes). I'd still rather play some of the Bethesda games over some of the open world games of nowadays. Some of course, as I do love my Assassin's Creed and Horizon games.

@JohnnyShoulder Well, obviously not. If you hit a brick wall with the game I doubt the disc would work anymore.

Your mileage may vary with that joke...

@KilloWertz I'm playing it through PS Plus extra.

@GirlVersusGame congrats on a well-earned plat by the sounds of it. Good intel on the ps5 crashes too, will keep that in mind and play it on ps4 when I get around to it 👊

Just finished the main story in Suicide Squad and while there is a fair way to go in terms of the platinum… as well as the subsequent story missions that were added with the seasons, I’ve had a good time.

Do I get why people were disappointed… yes. There is a decidedly small amount of actual story missions, though the ones that are there are very good. People used to Rocksteady’s usual output were no doubt a bit miffed by that. And the side-stuff is no doubt repetitive but the core gameplay still makes them fun enough to complete.

Post-game here I come!

So I apparently finished Assassin's Creed: Valhalla yesterday without realising it. There were no credits and there was still one final area I needed to clear before I was done with the game. The actual storyline however was over before I did the final area.

I still have Dawn of Ragnarok left to play, but I still felt like sharing my thoughts of the game now as I'm not sure when I'll start up DoR. It took me 95 hours to beat the game, including the season pass DLCs, and it was an absolutely fantastic experience. Unfortunately, I didn't like Valhalla more than Odyssey because of the setting. Ancient Greece was simply much more interesting to explore.

However, Valhalla improves upon many aspects of the AC open world formula. For instance, there isn't a plethora of weapons to find. There are fewer and more unique weapons this time around. I also liked the freedom of choosing how you want to level up your character through the extensive skill tree. Moreover, there weren't clusters of icons everywhere on the map and most of the stuff you find are useful. One aspect I didn't like was not being able to switch between two weapons. You're able to dual-wield two weapons but you can't switch between one of them at a time.

Another aspect that is better is the amount of story missions, which has been increased while the amount of side quests has been lowered and also shortened. This change is welcoming as I want to feel like I'm actually doing meaningful missions. I also liked the concept of going to different parts of the region and forming alliances.

Furthermore, I played through the DLCs Wrath of the Druids and The Siege of Paris. I enjoyed the first one more than the second one mostly because the story was more interesting. Both were really good though. I also did the crossover DLC, which was super cool. It definitely solidified my love for Odyssey.

All in all, I really liked Valhalla and it's become my second favourite AC game after Odyssey. Crazy to see the main story over now after having played the game for roughly two months now, but I still got Dawn of Ragnarok to play! Although I'm going to be focusing on getting through Indiana Jones for now.

Just finished Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on Series X after roughly 30 hours of playtime. Absolutely phenomenal game and my second favourite game of the year after Persona 3: Reload. It was just such an engrossing experience from start to finish. It felt like experiencing an original movie, but most importantly, it played like what you would expect for an Indiana Jones game. Captivating story, well-crafted characters, a multitude of locations to visit and explore, tons of puzzles to solve and thrilling combat.

I just want to stress how brilliant the puzzles were. I basically never had any problems with solving them, all the while I thought the game respected the player by giving us the necessary tools and then letting us figure out the puzzles with no assistance. The puzzles were never too easy or too hard, the difficulty was just about right for the vast majority of them. And it was satisfying as hell whenever you solved one. Words cannot express just how much I loved the puzzles in this game.

In contrast to other similar franchises, such as Uncharted, the Great Circle felt first and foremost like a game. Each level was like a sandbox where you were free to explore, tackle missions, collect stuff and basically have fun beating the crap out of the enemies. The levels were fairly large but they were still densely packed with content. There aren't too many of them, which made each one memorable. I can barely remember all the places you visit in an Uncharted game, but I will always remember the levels from the Great Circle as you spend so much time in each of them.

The combat is heavily reminiscent of the Condemned series, which I coincidentally experienced for the first time just a few months ago. It's in first-person, you find melee weapons everywhere in the levels, each one has a durability meter and you can also wield firearms. You can even use firearms as melee weapons, which I believe was also a thing in Condemned.

All in all, I had a blast playing through this game. It's the first time in a long time for me where a new release has actually offered some refreshing gameplay compared to most games these days.

Now I've wrapped up the Dawn of Ragnarok DLC for Assassin's Creed: Valhalla. It took me about 10 hours and I clocked my overall playtime to roughly 105 hours. Didn't really enjoy this one as much as the season pass DLCs as it just didn't add much to the game. I was also expecting to have superpowers in the DLC and while there were "some", they weren't that interesting. Ubisoft played it incredibly safe with this DLC. It simply isn't worth your time if you had enough of the base game.

@LtSarge Now you've got me really looking forward to the PS5 release of Indiana Jones. I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it as much as you did.

I beat Silent Hill 2 yesterday on my ps5 and all I can say is that this game it´s a masterpiece. Really enjoyed it, played on standard difficulty and it took me about 26hrs to finish the game. Looking forward to NG+ some time in the future and hopefully we´ll get some new SH or at least next remake

@Bentleyma I didn't even have any expectations going into this game and it turned out to be a wonderful experience. Hopefully you'll enjoy it as well when it comes out on PS5!

@GirlVersusGame Absolutely a worthwhile experience. Really loved it! "Before the Storm" didn't quite reach the same heights for me, but it was still a solid game with some great emotional beats.
I haven't dared playing any of the follow-ups yet, as I fear they will be only pale imitations (though I hear they are quite decent)

@GirlVersusGame Alan Wake is another game I enjoyed quite a bit, also with the Twin Peaks/X-Files vibes with a solid dose of Stephen King. A combo that works exceedingly well with me when well executed, and Alan Wake truly nails it. I hated the DLC, though

@GirlVersusGame I would recommend playing the other Life is Strange games if you had a good experience with the first. They are all good. It might be a bit much to play them all in sequence without a break, but LiS2 and True Colors are very different from a story perspective from Max and Chloe. The gameplay and art style is essentially the same though, so that’s why it might be good to take a little break between them next one. I haven’t played the latest, Double Exposure, yet. It’s not been as well received, but I can’t imagine I won’t like it since I’ve enjoyed all the other four. Honestly, I think Before the Storm might be my favorite.

Edit: It is optimal if you play The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit before you play LiS2. It was originally the free demo for the game that came out before release, but unlike most demos, it actually has a completely different story not contained in the main game, and yet somewhat important to it. It’s more like DLC in that sense but was designed to be played beforehand, and it takes only about an hour or so to play. But don’t worry, if you find it boring the main LiS2 game is a lot better and has much better pacing. And you’ll be happy you played the demo when you experience the main game.

@GirlVersusGame I’ve never been massively into games with a predominantly narrative-focus but I was pleasantly surprised by the original Life is Strange and have been playing one a year since (I’ve now played the trilogy) and have Before the Storm and Double Exposure left to play. I found myself connecting with the second one in particular and would be real happy if a future game returned to those characters.

Good start to this year as I just finished my first game this year, which is Injustice: Gods Among Us on Series X. I'm gonna be honest, I wasn't that good at this game as 2D fighting games aren't my forte. But I still enjoyed the gameplay and the story was rather entertaining as well. It took me 3 hours to finish the story, which is a good length for this type of game. It also felt good to play through a short game for a change. Really excited to check out more 2D fighting games from here on out that have a good story mode, such as Mortal Kombat.