Topic: Games you've recently beat

Silent Hill 2 Remake, was blown away but how good it was. Reminded me of playing RE2 OG all over again the creepiness, music, atmosphere everything what a joy to play. (b ' ' )b

Rolled credits on Far Cry 5 yesterday - loved the game, hated the ending. I understand what they were going for, but it just felt like a betrayal to me.
Funnily enough, I didn't expect to get so engaged with the game. I've typically been quite cool on the Far Cry games and the likes but I bought this on a sale a while back as I thought the environments looked quite stunning, but when I tried it I really didn't like it and put it away.

Then, recent real world events made want to go back in and take down a cult, so after lowering the difficulty I found a truly enjoyable, if somewhat shallow, game. On the strength of this, I will give the previous two Far Cry games a go at a later date, but I'm unsure about Far Cry 6. I find the setting very intriguing, but a video review mentioned that you need to micromanage ammo types in a fight based on enemy types, which seems like something that would severely p**s me off, so I'll probably skip that one.

Now it's off to Yotei!

@FuriousMachine I wouldn't skip Far Cry 6 based on on one review. I don't recall having to micromanage different ammo types when I played the game. Granted that was a couple of years ago, so my memory of the game may not be the best. I did play it quite a bit after release, so maybe it something they patched out or something.

@JohnnyShoulder To be fair, the review was quite favourable, but I'm wary of game mechanics that frustrate me and fast paced action games that require me to juggle too much when the heat is on frustrates me to no end. Even on easy difficulty, in some of the fights in FC5 I struggled when I had to switch weapons and ammo type whilst being relentlessly attacked, but this was thankfully a rare occurrence. If the mechanic was ramped up enough for FC6 for a reviewer to feel it was worth bringing up, I get a bit wary. I'll put it on my wishlist and may pick it up if it's dirt cheap at one point.
Luckily, I'm blessed with a backlog that is in no way yearning to have even more games added to it, so I'll probably be okay should FC6 pass me by completely

@JohnnyShoulder @FuriousMachine

Far Cry 6 is good, dumb fun! I think it is probably the easiest to play as I suck(ed) at first person shooters, but I blitzed through that island like a one woman wrecking crew. Honestly, I don't know why it wasn't better recieved, at a time when people moan that games aren't fun anymore, this was pure, unadulterated gaming crack.

Singing along to Ricky Martin as you mow down fascists in a sports car, a backdrop of bright colourful gasings and explosions, and the Cuban "stuck in the 50's" aesthetic. And the bugs, oh the bugs! Some of the best (non game breaking, just hilarious) i've seen in games. Chefs kiss.

It's the kind of game i'd play again for a laugh, and maybe I will do, one day. I wish i'd recorded more of it, as it was filled with mad moments.

But, if ever you need selling on it, just watch this short clip 😅 it has everything! Compacted into an absolute buggy mess of a scene 👀

Gaming ecstasy. I will try to track down more clips, but they might have been wiped as they were captured on a ps5 I sold on 😭 I never uploaded the best bug i've seen in gaming, and i'm not sure why 😭

@Ravix That made me LOL.
I'm not that good at FPSes either and I typically don't find them much fun, so FC5 actually surprised me with how much I enjoyed it.
But, okay, seems like my biggest worry with FC6 is a non-issue, which increases the chances of me getting to it before I despawn from this earth. Still, there are many games ahead of it in line, one of which I shall start right this moment

@FuriousMachine 👻🏔?

Aha, good! Far Cry 6 is a great, low effort, summer game, potentially a winter season escape game (that I'm actually reinstalling it this very second just in case I want to p*ss about on the island again.) I'm sure there are moments that could get harder, but I never felt it was a hard game, and you get a bunch of cool tools to explode, gas, burn or simply pop the heads off the baddies (I remember the skull crunch of a headshot was weirdly theraputic and satisfying in FC6 😬)

Pretty sure it is one of those games where you can achieve goals in multiple ways based on your skillset and available tools. I used long rifles and stealth quite a bit, but went for run and gun (and gator) when the mood took me. Its just a big, colourful sandbox of destruction and chaos, tbh. And, yeah, I'd almost guarantee there will be many LOL moments if you play games the way I do, and sometimes all you have to do is observe and it will provide its own comedy 😁

@Ravix Almost missed the first question, as the emojis are so small, but, yes, that is correct. I've made a list, checked it twice and now Atsu is coming to town (and she's pis**d). Good Godzilla, that game is beautiful! Loving it so far.

Sounds like FC6 is more of the same from FC5, which is a good thing for me. My favourite way of taking down strongholds in FC5 was perching on a nearby hill with a sniper rifle and having a stealth warrior (Jess) by my side, whilst calling in painted air strikes from my man in the sky (Nick). Jess and my rifle would take care of cultists getting close to my position. A quite literal added bonus was that Nick's air strikes didn't count as being spotted, giving me the added "undetected" bonus.

@FuriousMachine I searched about it online, and itis definitely a thing in the game, but nothing game ruining and could mostly get through the game without paying too much attention to it. We all find different things egregious, but if I had found anything like that too annoying or frustating I'm sure it would have stuck a bit more. Or I would given and moved on to something else.

@JohnnyShoulder Right, and hopefully it will be further mitigated by lowering the difficulty, which I'm almost certainly going to have to do to enjoy it, if and when I get to it

Abiotic Factor. It felt like maybe 20 hours but in actuality it was 200hrs. I only ran into one bug and for an Unreal game it ran really well. I think a lot of people will skip the game because of how it was marketed. Most people I mentioned the game to seemed to think it was primarily a survival game but it's a lot more than just a cookie cutter survival. The facility itself is vast and has some brilliantly designed areas and themes, the story is very Half Life and the combat has so much more depth than I expected. I started with melee then tried guns, then went back to melee and settled with blunt and thrown weapons but really every play-style felt fun and accessible. It's well worth trying if you like some light survival elements mixed into a great story. The Devs released a roadmap too meaning more content is on the way. I managed to grab platinum too, which is rare enough for a survival game. Next up is Rimworld, I'm familiar with it on PC but finally wanted to give in and try the console edition. It will be a nice distraction until Satisfactory lands on the 4th.

That’s Cronos: The New Dawn finished. I could go on forever about how much I love this game and how great I think it is but I’ll spare the forum. Might even do a New Game+ run right away for the platinum. To anyone interested, this is a real gem.

@Metonymy Congratulations, man. I hope you enjoy their Silent Hill 1 Remake just as much. Counting down the days!

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN Thank you kindly! I’ve been a bit obsessed with it actually. The story and world building are so interesting, I’m picking up much more in New Game+. It’s also nice that I’m a bit of a killing machine now in comparison to my first run, which took me 22 hours! This run is going much faster. Great game, man! Yeah, Silent Hill Remake can’t come soon enough!

Just finished the main story on Final Fantasy XIII-2 and after being a bit unsure of it initially, it finished off pretty strongly both in story and gameplay. I didn’t enjoy it as much as its predecessor, as it just seemed really disparate… at least for the first half or so. The various locations at different times and realities… it just took me a while to get oriented and being the massive control-freak that I am, I didn’t appreciate that. Once I had a handle on what was going on and where I needed to go, it really started to click with me though. Also, there is some absolute musical bangers in the last few areas. I quite liked the main villain too.

@Metonymy I know that you don’t always go for the plats, so that says all I need to hear about your feelings on the game. Good luck chasing down that shiny.

@Metonymy I've been super interested in picking up Cronos: The New Dawn after how I adored the Silent Hill 2 Remake. I've always heard very divisive things of other Bloober games, but this one sounds like it's fairly universally liked/loved. Plus I am always happy to see any survival horror game come out with a sci-fi setting, especially this one being an original story at that. If you could give any kind of pitch on what makes this game so special and stand out within the survival horror landscape, I'd love to hear it! I love to hear anyone discuss anything they greatly enjoyed, and if it helps me get moer excited in the process, it seems like a win-win.

Not exactly difficult, but finished Ball X Pit.

Once you get past the early grind, the unlockable features and ability to harvest more resources made it quiet easy towards the end, although it did kill the enjoyment a little, as I was going through the motions after a while, but a fun game to play and unwind on with some Spotify or whatever in the background.

Although I don't chase them, I think the platinum came in around 38-39 hours, while playing at a leisurely pace, so those more hardcore hunters could bring that down to 30-35 on the faster speed settings.

@graymamba Love it when something just clicks!

@Tjuz So from a macro perspective, Cronos is more of a love letter to the survival horror genre than a game trying to do something different or innovative within it. It’s very much a genre piece, so to speak but one treated with love and respect.

It has an old-school feel, in that scarce resource management within a tight inventory system are front and centre (you’ll be returning to you’re chest regularly to juggle things like bolt cutters), there’s no dodges or fancy counters, no elaborate puzzle solving, very few set pieces, not a lot of handholding and an ambiguous story culminating in a challenging but fair experience (there’s no difficulty selection, though you do unlock hard mode and New Game+ upon completion). So, what makes the game special? I’ll try to point some things out without spoiling too much.

Presentation: The game is incredibly atmospheric, with excellent lighting and textures, highly detailed environments that are a joy to crawl through and utterly phenomenal sound design backed by what I wouldn’t hesitate to declare an iconic score. It’s not scary, with predictable (yet not obnoxious) jump scares, however it is tense as hell.

The story itself respects the players intelligence by expecting the player to do some legwork. Though the overarching metaphor is rather clear, both the way in which it’s delivered and the thematic conclusions derived therein are challenging and well worth ruminating over.

There’s not a lot of character work here and outside of the 3 main characters (who are very well-written, well-acted and well animated) is pretty middling and basically the only thing holding this back from a 10/10 for me. What I’m trying to say is, some of the animation and delivery with these secondary characters is a bit…off…which is a shame as these interactions are really cool: you enter into an interrogation with these characters in order to coax their essence out of them, so it’s a bit of a missed opportunity that these moments are, at times, tonally melodramatic and over animated. They’re not bad, just not quite at the same level of quality as the rest of what’s here.

Gameplay: The systems in place here all work toward maintaining a relentless sense of tension while reinforcing a methodical, deliberate pace. Every second, every decision and every bullet counts. As mentioned, I crawled through most of the game (not so much in NG+). Spearheading this is the seemingly small but hugely impactful decision to focus on charging shots. Here lies the games quiet genius. Uncharged shots are simply ineffective, therefore the combat loop becomes a rhythm and timing game of charging shots while keeping your distance and managing an uncompromisingly tight inventory by utilizing environmental hazards to keep enemies from merging.

Merging is bad. Enemies become much more powerful if they manage to do so. Here’s a good example of how the expertly tuned and balanced economy and inventory system work: The only thing that reliably interrupts the merging process is fire but in the beginning, you’re limited inventory means you’ll likely only be able to carry one torch fuel. It’s so nice to play something where upgrades really mean something! Being able to stack even one extra torch fuel can be an absolute game changer but upgrade materials are in short supply. Choose wisely 😄

Even buffs are doled out with this give and take. The essences you collect give you buffs (such as more effective melee hits…) but your phylactery (where you store the essences) can only hold three at a time, meaning you have to delete one to make room for the new shiny you would like to use. Of course, every decision is final, you are leaving something behind whether you like it or not.

Not once did I completely run out of ammo but I often finished an encounter with little to no resources left. This is the heart and soul of survival horror and a balancing act that Bloober absolutely nails with Cronos. It’s really hard to make the player feel like they barely scraped by but also like a complete badass but that’s what Cronos is.

An easy 9/10 from me and if not for the left-field masterpiece that Clair Obscur ended up being, this would be my game of the year. It’s exhilarating, rewarding and most importantly, fun.

@Metonymy Thank you for the extended write-up! Loved reading it. It sounds like in terms of presentation Bloober Team learned a lot from their efforts with the Silent Hill 2 Remake to really give this one as polished and thematically pitch-perfect of an appeal. A shame about the animations at certain points, but it sounds like it by far hasn't taken fully away from the experience. Even just having a game like this that's a totally unique IP within the genre with this type of budget is commendable enough on its own, whether or not they had to cut corners with a few things here and there.

I like what you've explained about how the combat works and the focus on charging shots. It's cool to see a game in this space take a bit of a different approach than simply "throw whatever bullets at it within your capacity". It's very hard to get the balance of when to have the player conserve ammo and when to give them enough opportunity to take down a big bad right in survival horror, and it sounds like they've nailed it. You've definitely sold me on the game. When I have some time in-between whatever I have been playing, I'll look to it to fill the next spot and report back with my thoughts!

@Tjuz It’s hard to articulate what really makes the game special without spoiling too much, hence the ramble of a post 😬 The game just has a lot of really nice touches and a lot more to dive into, including the excellent level design and one particularly memorable boss fight but especially in regards to how the narrative and design elements work together to create a greater whole. I look forward to hearing your thoughts!