Topic: Games you've recently beat

Don’t get him all fired up now

@Jimmer-jammer That is only the tip of the jamberg!

Finished my first (well first in 16 years) and what ‘should’ be my only full playthrough of Dragon Age: Origins last night and it’s been fun. The gameplay has aged quite considerably imho but the story and characters remain engaging. Its a nice game to just exist in for a bit really, wander around locations, speak to random characters and fill in the blanks on the lore of the world and it’s distinct cultures… and just old-fashioned role-play in a game. Feels like it’s been a minute since I’ve done that.

@graymamba Always loved that one. Think I played through it three times back in my X360 days, in order to get through as many permutations of the story as I could. I think it was after my third time I felt I had seen most, if not all, of what the game had to offer (including DLC) and I felt quite sad about that. Then the sequels failed to live up to that experience and I felt even sadder 😉

@FuriousMachine yeah I remember playing 2 and feeling really disappointed by it. Never did play Inquisition but have heard some good things about it, so quite looking forward to getting to it. Don’t know what to think of Veilguard though, the discourse was just so agenda-driven (on both sides by my estimation) that I just kinda switched-off to it all. I’m gonna be playing through them all over the next few years, so it’ll be interesting to take in the whole series and how it’s changed.

@graymamba I've tried to get into "Inquisition" a couple of times. My first time I got a solid bit into it, getting to the place where you can customise your stronghold and such, but at that point I was pretty bored with it, everything feeling like busywork.
Did try a couple of times after that, but didn't have the patience to get very far. I fully expect to make it through at one point though, I think I just need to be in the right mood for it, so it's sitting pretty on the backlog just waiting for its time to come (along with "Veilguard").

@FuriousMachine yeah the right mood can make all the difference I find. I’ve returned to a good few games that I didn’t initially click with and ended up really enjoying them.

@graymamba Absolutely, had quite a few of them myself. And some games are hard to give up on, especially those I really wanted to like, but for some reason didn't. Some times it's better to just let go, though

After 60 hours, I’ve finished the main story of Star Wars Outlaws.

I actually found the game to be really solid. Maybe a 7.5/10. A few things keep it from reaching all-time status, but it’s better than we were led to believe by the early critiques. Of course there’s been a lot of patching and fixing since launch. There’s no excuse for some of the catastrophic issues the game had when it came out, like the loss of progress for those who did early access, and the insta-fail missions that made you repeat from the beginning. Thankfully, the game is in a really solid state now. Plenty of autosaves, no loss of progress, no crashes. They recently added the ability to keep weapons that you pick up, which was another common complaint.

It’s got the open world trappings that many of this genre have — loads of side activities that are often of low quality, oodles of little collectibles that mostly add very little to the experience, and occasional technical jank that interrupts the experience from time to time. The main storyline was good though, and there were endearing new characters and locations. And some of the side quests were pretty good too.

The game world is extremely well crafted to represent a living Star Wars open world. That’s probably the games strongest quality — the reproduction of the SW Universe. It’s really enjoyable to explore and soak it all up.

My main issues were some of the gameplay elements. There’s a lot more stealth than I expected, but I eventually grew to enjoy it. I don’t mind stealth, but the balance is a little off here. Not only does breaking stealth during some missions result in a huge nigh unwinable firefight, it often ruins your reputation with one of the syndicates. Balancing those reputations is one of the key gameplay features and having a poor reputation with a faction can make the game much harder. So stealth on many of the missions is imperative. It wasn’t until the end game when I really got to experience a lot of the weapons and combat.

The territorial nature of these gangs also affects exploration. The maps on the different planets are all unique and inviting, but you can’t freely explore without constantly worrying about interruption unless you’re on good terms with whichever syndicate rules the area you roam into. Finally towards the end I had “excellent” reputation with all the factions (after doing quite a bit of busy work to get there) and it made the exploration easier, but there’s always still places that you can’t get to without sneaking in.

The spaceship portions are another area that was not my favorite. I think those sections are well done, but I’m not a big fan of space/air combat. The whole 360 degree aspect in all directions is quite hard for me to process. So I mostly only engaged with the spaceship parts when they were essential.

After finishing the game, there’s opportunity to return and do mop-up, but I think I’m going to leave it for now. The platinum actually doesn’t look that difficult, but there’s a checklist of things to do that would take a long time, so I’m ready to move on.

I really liked Kay Vess though, and Nix. Many of the other characters were good too. Overall, a fun time definitely was had.

Now, the critical decision of what to play next…

@Th3solution after a middling yet enjoyable game, the best thing to play is a universally regarded all time classic type of game. You know what that means (you have plenty to choose from, and all are great choices)

@Ravix Actually downloading Baldur’s Gate 3 now. I think it’s time. There’s no more major updates in the works and I’m in the mood for something different and not action based. Really tempted by Clair Obscur too, but BG3 seems to be beckoning.

I’m very intimidated though. No guarantees that I won’t bail if it seems too much for me. 😄 I’ve bookmarked some beginner tips that I need to review.

@Zazu Glad you found it helpful. If you’re a fan of the Ubi formula and at least have a causal interest in Star Wars, then it’s an easy recommend. I picked it up at a discount for around $35 and it was definitely worth that. It likely has 100 hours of content if you want to clear all the missions and find all the optional stuff. Not to mention the add-on content and DLC has been coming out. But you don’t even need to buy any DLC to have a boatload of stuff to do: there’s a whole card mini-game called Sabaac, the aforementioned spaceship quests and battles, collectible gear, speeder races, and other activities that I barely scratched the surface participating in. It’s really a huge game with a lot of content (as these Ubi games tend to be).

I will say that the structure of the game, although open world, is slightly different from other Ubi open world games. At least different from the Assassins Creed games (I’ve not played Far Cry, Avatar, Watch Dogs, or The Division). The game map for each planet is basically open for exploration right away; there’s not any Ubi Towers to defog the map. You can start roaming around each planet as soon as you arrive (as well as roam around their outer space orbit when get your ship) You’re fairly weak for most of the game and can die readily if you go to an area and are discovered, but it never feels like you’re underleveled or underpowered to be there, it’s more because you’re supposed to sneak around and not be discovered, or have a good reputation with the gang there and not be killed. It’s not a game where you level up and become a killing machine (although there’s a few skills you gradually get which help in the firefights). So the gatekeeping of the map is done differently than what I’ve experienced in other Ubi-like open world games.

Anyway, definitely keep it on your watchlist as it’s a worth a go if you’re a fan of those style games.

As for my next flavor, I’m playing Lost Records as my side/chill game. And then, as noted above, plan to finally tackle the behemoth that is BG3 for my “main” game. We’ll see. I hope that’s the solution. 😄

@Th3solution don't worry, initial steep learning curve, but still plenty of non-combat solutions. Once you get a grasp of you and your party's builds it becomes very managble on the medium/hard difficulty. But it's probably best to start easy until the moment it clicks, but that should be well within the first outdoor area at some point and you'll know when that is as it will be getting to be a breeze.

My best trick early was learn how to split your party out of combat so you can kind of scout with one, and reposition others when you can see there's trouble ahead. So Mages or Archer types up on high ground, sneaky rogues round the back or in the shadows for bonus attacks unseen, tanks get to go down the middle to aggro etc etc. And obviously have your best speech check character do the speaking if you want to resolve things that way.

If you're prepared to read about the game when not playing it it definitely helps. And, for me, it made me want to learn about it anyway so it was just like playing the game away from the console, in a way. Formulating ideas, thinking of new things to try and all that. And all of that really suits the tabletop RP roots, tbh. It's just part and parcel of it.

You know what, you've just inspired me to check out the state of my Dark Urge save as it hit me that BG3 is possibly quite a good summer game that can just be played casually when you just need to chill on those summer evenings with something a little less intense.

It may be pretty good for your PS handheld too, bit of inventory management and character upgrades while watching sports or whatever. Let us know if you try it out on that, maybe I'll finally check one of them out in the DoP sale 🤔

@Th3solution Enjoy the BG3 experience! I really want to have another run at some point but there’s too much else to play and not enough time to do so. I think I have around 30 tabs bookmarked for the game’s subreddit on builds and areas I missed first time around..

There are loads of newbie tip threads on there but the ones I remember off the top of my head was that you can use the jump ability by pressing up on the d-pad (and not go through the radial menu every time) and I think holding up would equip a torch if you have (and need) one. Holding down X also highlights interactable items near to you. And holding down makes the whole party hide.

You can also split your party if you want, useful for sending in one sneaky character or to position your party for an ambush.

Don’t be afraid of using the long rest ability as lots of interesting (and often important) stuff happens in camp at these times.

I’d also say that the early game kind of sucks as your characters are so bad in combat with weak abilities and seemingly such a high miss rate but things do get better! Act 1 feels the most polished part of the game though and two of the main areas there are among the best in the game.

Enjoy!

I just beat Doom: The Dark Ages last night and got the platinum trophy. It was an excellent game and really became superb from Chapter 6 onwards and didn’t slow down its pace. There were a few issues I had with it, but overall, I think it’s my favorite in the modern trilogy. I also got the platinum trophy in Clair Obscur a week ago, so I’m feeling pretty good with my accomplishments. I’m now going to chill to something less draining mentally and physically.

Just finished Luigi's Mansion on 3DS after about 6 hours of playtime. It's crazy to me what a vastly different experience this game was to me compared to Luigi's Mansion 2, which I absolutely hated due to the steep difficulty level. The difficulty in the first game isn't high at all, it's just about right. I never had any issues getting through it and I managed to do everything in just 6 hours. It was a much more focused and straightforward experience compared to the hair-pulling experience that was the second game.

So if it wasn't clear enough, I vastly prefer the first game to the second one. It was simply much more enjoyable, not to mention it felt like playing Nintendo's version of Resident Evil. You explore a mansion, find keys to unlock different rooms, solve puzzles and so on. It was really fun! I'm glad that I've finally played this game now.

Also finished Far Cry 5 on PS5 after about 30 hours of playtime. Another great entry in this series and the one that felt most like GTA in terms of the sandbox experience. Love all the different weapons and vehicles at your disposal. The story and the villain were interesting but I still prefer Far Cry 3 when it comes to those parts. Although the ending of this game was crazy, wasn't expecting that at all. I did however hear some hints towards that in the in-game radio, which at the time I thought was weird but now it all makes sense. Really cool by the devs to leave hints like that.

All in all, great and fun game! I'm considering getting the season pass as I kinda want to keep playing this game since it's so much fun and the settings for the three DLCs are rather interesting. I'll have to see, but either way, I'm more excited to play New Dawn in the future just to see how the story continues.

Just finished Boltgun and Bulletstorm. Both very enjoyable. I'm surprised Bulletstorm never got a sequel.

I just finished Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo — a GBA inspired, top down Metroidvania. It took me approximately 20 hours with a 75% completion rate. It’s one of the year’s best games, and I recommend anyone that’s a fan of Zelda/vania’s to give the game a go.

Uncharted 4: Thief's End - I've enjoyed the Uncharted games somewhat up to this point, which - naturally - is why I've continued playing them. This one, though.... this one I loved. I can't put my finger on it, but I suspect it was the incredibly satisfying story arc for Nate and Elena and where they ended up. As with most of these games, it is too long... when you're sliding and timing your jump for the hundredth time and crashing through a ceiling or falling from a crumbling ledge for the thousandth time, you kind of wish the game was shorter, but while I did get somewhat impatient with it towards the end, I had an overall great time all the way through.

Next up I will try to pick up where I left off on Life is Strange 2 before Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 distracted me. It hadn't really clicked that hard with me up to that point, but hopefully I'll get more engaged soon.

@FuriousMachine Lost Legacy should be a perfect fit for you, so hopefully you plan to visit it (if you haven’t already). It’s a mini version of UC4, with a different protagonist of course, and enough gameplay wrinkles to set it apart, but plays very much like an Uncharted game but is much shorter and doesn’t overstay its welcome. UC4 is the longest game in the series, if my memory serves me, and I do think I recall a tiny bit of dragging at the end. But like you, I still loved it, and plan to replay it in order when I get the predecessors replayed.

And here’s hoping LiS2 pulls you back in; I think the middle chapters do lose some of the narrative direction for a while until things get back together at the end.