Topic: Games you've recently beat

I finished Alan Wake 2 today. Whilst I did enjoy it, considering the critical reception it received I was quite underwhelmed by it. Maybe I'm just less interested in the psychological stylings of the story that I must admit I was kind of zoning out on it at the end. I'm not really sure how it ended as I looked at something else for a few seconds and I looked back to see it had finished and the credits were rolling. I'm not really a fan of all the live action stuff either.
Gameplay-wise it was alright. I enjoyed figuring out the clues and puzzles, even the ones for unlocked stashes. But that provided another issue in that the enemies respawned way too frequently. I would clear an area and find a stash, start looking around for the clues for it and the enemies would reappear. It happened a few times with one crate before I opened it. It really made looking for the lunchboxes and things quite annoying. Especially with the enemies that teleported around and threw stuff. By the time I figured out where they were in the scenery they would shift again before I barely got a shot off or hit it with light.
As the game was given with Plus I brought the DLC as it was on sale. Having done the first one I'm thinking I probably shouldn't have bothered. Maybe the second one will be better.

Overall I thought Control was vastly superior to this.

I beat Tomb Raider 1 through the remaster thing, having played them on Vita a few years ago. Great game but I do miss Rog’s advice.

@BearsEatBeets I think I feel much the same way you do. A shame as I really thought the game would be up my alley (I like the first and LOVED Control) but it ended up being a very uneven experience for me. Broadly I felt it tried to do too much, was severely let down by a lot of poor scenario design and the structure of the game hurt the twists and turns of the narrative. The detective wall thing grew tiresome and the upgrade system was basically meaningless. The overall presentation was so well done though and kept me going to the end, which I honestly felt was antagonist and unsatisfying. I don’t know, a lot of folks really seem to jive with it but I don’t get it. Can’t wait for Control 2!

Just platinumed Ghost of Tsushima. For me, it's one of the only games that, story wise, gets close to the RDR games.
Before that Robocop Rogue City. Surprisingly good.

@profprofessorson Yeah, that story is something else. There was a poll on here on which aspects from Tsushima we prefer over Yotei and, for me, Tsushima got it in every category but the character (I like Jin, but I have a thing for strong, badass ladies, so Atsu wins that one for me). Fun platinum to get, too. Congrats on getting it

Bless your heart. You gonna play through the other remasters in due course?

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Speaking of remastered trilogies, yesterday I cleared Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney via its recent PS4 re-release. I gotta be honest, I was expecting a little more innovation / evolution right off the bat, and it took me a while to get settled... but then, of course, its interconnected narrative began to build, and by the game's final case, I was hooked. Perhaps more bells and whistles would have distracted from the complexity of the writing, so I reckon they got their priorities right.

Unfortunately, Gumshoe was relegated to a brief cameo, so I can't score it higher than 2/10. So close!

I'm gonna break to play the Investigations duology (also via a separate PS4 re-release) so that I'm experiencing the series in chronological order, but I'm looking forward to returning to Apollo's storyline and learning more about his character someday soon.

@Werehog Started Tomb Raider 2 and forgot just how many human enemies there were. So much harder to hold onto your health!

@nessisonett Oh my, yes. Even in other PSone games, I was far too used to simply stepping over fallen enemies and automatically collecting any discarded ammo or medkits. Manually looting each and every corpse is something I still occasionally forget to do but, to ensure you don't come up short in later levels, it's borderline essential in TR2.

If you've got the bandwidth for them, don't sleep on the remastered expansions, either. They're challenging but show the level designers trying new things, so can be kinda interesting.

@Werehog Oh yeah, I did play Unfinished Business after TR1 and thought it was decent. The Atlantis levels were really quite hard but I enjoyed the Egypt ones a lot.

@nessisonett That was exactly my conclusion, too. Which bodes well, as I also thought they steadily improved with each subsequent game. Hope you enjoy 'em, as and when!

Rolled credits on Dispatch. I would highly recommend this to anyone who enjoyed any of Telltale's games, as I think it perfectly captures the peak storytelling of their best games while mixing it in with a really fun gameplay segment each episode. The lack of meaningful gameplay was often a critique with Telltale's endeavors, and I think the gameplay here should appeal to people who were looking for more of that. It's not anything that has a huge impact on the overarching narrative save for a few consequences here and there, but it did a lot to immerse you into the characters. All the constant chatter was a great way of developing their personalities outside of the expertly animated cutscenes, which made it incredibly meaningful to the storytelling either way. After all eight episodes, this is my crew and I was ready to die for them if need be.

My only criticism would be the handling of Invisigal's arc. In particular the later developments, which I thought felt somewhat rushed and should've been given more time to breathe for how impactful they were. I loved how much the narrative felt like a workplace dramedy even more so than your standard superhero fare. I've made it no secret that I'm not into superhero storytelling outside for a few exceptions here and there, but the rather low-stakes nature of the story doubled with the character-driven storytelling did a lot for me here to remain appreciative of the superhero elements rather than let me be in any way turned off by them.

I would say this is probably the best effort yet in this type of game since the best Telltale games. I think Star Trek: Resurgence came close to it (courtesy of @Werehog) and I loved that game, but this is still on another level. Mentioning that game however instantly made me intrigued to see if they have announced a new one, but alas, it seems like no news yet on any follow-up. Just genuinely fantastic writing throughout this one making it worthwhile for anyone who appreciates some good storytelling in video game form. Also, surprisingly committed to letting you sit with your choices, unlike quite a few of Telltale's works. Two big decisions in the early episodes for example had huge ramifications throughout, which I was delighted by. Highly recommended now that all episodes are out!

@Tjuz You’ve definitely sold me on Dispatch. Seems to be a really unique story idea and a great take on the Telltale formula.

I’ve been hovering over the purchase button several times this week. I’ve exercised great restraint to not add to my backlog but all bets are off if it has a nice BF discount! 😄

@Th3solution Do it! @Tjuz ain't lyin'! I've only finished episode 3, but I am already in love with the story, the characters and the sublime animation and voice acting! As I mentioned in a comment in the review article, this deserves a non-interactive version on Netflix or something for the "normies" out there, it is just so good that it deserves a bigger audience outside the gaming sphere.

@FuriousMachine Another ringing endorsement! Certainly seems to be a matter of ‘when’ and not ‘if’ at this point for me. I love having a good supply of these narrative heavy games in my library to serve as palate cleansers between (or alongside) larger gameplay heavy experiences. With the unique animated art style and creative storyline, it will fit perfectly into that bucket in my back catalogue.
(Edit: also seems like it will be a perfect Portal game to enjoy laying in bed or lounging on the couch)

@Th3solution I find the episode length is perfect for shorter gaming bursts. If I don't feel like getting stuck in with Atsu's lengthy campaign, I'll fire up "Dispatch" instead. Great experience. In fact, I think I'll fire up ep. 4 right now as I plan to watch the Xbox thing later on

@Th3solution Glad to hear I convinced you! And I simultaneously will apologise to your wallet for doing so... Keep us updated with your thoughts! I'd love to hear you discussing it here as you go along. And yes, I'm not someone who plays portably, but this is easily the type of game which would fit that perfectly. @FuriousMachine is also right in that the episodes are of a great length to just pick it up whenever you have some free time. All of the first six episodes took me about an hour exactly, while the last two went from a shorter 40 minutes to the longer 80 minutes for the finale.

And I have to ask @FuriousMachine... what were your major end-of-episode decisions so far? I'd love to know!

@Tjuz Thanks for tagging me in the midst of your Dispatch thoughts, not least because mention of something that you feel exceeds Star Trek: Resurgence has me curious!

@Tjuz Nice thoughts on Dispatch. I'd been intrigued by it but now..

@Tjuz I'm going to have to refer to the game, as I don't remember which decisions it considers "big", but most recently, in episode 4, I added Waterboy to the team and saw a movie with Invisigal. If I remember it, I'll post a summary of my choices (within a huge spoiler block) when I'm all done with the game and we can compare and discuss

Finished my first playthrough of Dispatch. Even within the context of its genre, I never found this particularly fun to actually play (they give you the option to disable the QTEs entirely, but this seems to just mean you default to the fail state each time, like you left them on and just didn't press anything, - don't really get the point of that?)

It is also much shorter than these sorts of games usually are (think I beat it in about 7 hours). That is meant less as a negative, or a positive, and just more of a general statement as I know length as a metric of value worthiness is applied by some (I kinda feel the opposite, where a game being 40+ hours is usually something that puts me off).

Although if I was to spin this in a negative or positive direction, I would argue some of the later chapters do feel a little rushed not so much so to ruin things in the moment, but it is just more on reflection now as I write this and think of the twists and turns, heel and face turns, sorted piled on top of each other, never given much room to breathe or allow us to process it, like a lot of it really didn't hit like I think it was meant to, as I wasn't even given a second to understand what was really going on before it moved on.

But then maybe I just feel that short run time more, because it is one of the few games I've played in the last few years where I could actually do with more, that I wasn't glad it was finally over after slogging through the final stretch. It is a testament to the exceptional acting, the writing, the characters, the visuals, basically every other part of this was so exceptional that I was willing to put God mode on and grit my teeth through those annoying hacking objectives.

Maybe I am wrong, but based on my read of my first playthrough, I can only really see two paths through this game, with sprinklings of different seasoning that don't ultimately alter the trajectory of things, but I enjoyed this enough and see enough windows for variance that I will probably run through this again in the new year and make some different choices.

Not sure where this ranks in this genre of gaming, but it is definitely one of the things I have enjoyed playing the most this year. It isn't going to topple giants for me like Expedition 33 or Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter, maybe not even above something like Avowed either, but I'd feel really good about slotting those behind those.