Topic: Games you've recently beat

@Th3solution well I own all of them and I'm planning on playing them in order. Though I'll probably take a break so not to burn myself out.

(Alert - Life is Strange: Before the Storm and Life is Strange spoilers ahead and tagged)
@RogerRoger Yes, the overall narrative end point of where Rachel is and where Chloe’s mind is at the beginning of LiS is set, so you’re right that as a prequel, you’re painted into a corner as to where you can go with things. But I can say I agree that the whole part involving her starting the fire after confessing to Chloe what they saw when they happen to see her dad having the secret trist with Sera was very poignant and symbolic of Rachel’s entire life being up in flames and largely from her own doing. Then having pulled that sucker punch to our emotions, finding out Rachel’s birth mother is Sera was somewhere I didn’t expect things to go. Despite the pacing issues with the 3rd episode and the seemingly unnatural jumps in logic (breaking into the house and burning evidence ... boy the DA would be locked up for eternity in prison if all that was discovered. Also the rather abrupt end where Sera all of a sudden doesn’t want to meet Rachel after writing those letters and demanding to see her for a year ... the sudden change of heart felt forced, etc, etc) yet I still enjoyed watching the story unfold
But as far as the decisions you make having an impact, nothing large was decided but for example even though it is a small thing, the fact that depending how you approached the attack on Drew (stay in the room or go out to lend aid) made a difference, at least cosmetically, on who was injured and hospitalized. Other small choices did result in little changes but the end choice of telling the truth to Rachel about her dad or hiding it from her at her mother’s request did actually feel impactful, not so much because it changed Rachel’s ultimate destiny to end up dead at the hands of the creepy photographer teacher, but it carried forth Chloe’s very broken conscious and inner struggle that translated into her state of mind you come upon at the beginning of LiS.
As for how I approached things personally, I chose to adhere to Sera’s request to withhold the information of James’s true nature. Part of this made sense to me to do because I knew where Rachel was headed and her days were numbered before she is killed and so I wanted her final months to be happy ones. It also was helpful that Sera herself was requesting that Chloe stay silent and lie to Rachel for the greater good. Despite my choice, I struggled with lying to her and felt bad about that. It was worse when I went back and watched the alternate ending by choosing to tell Rachel the truth and got to see her and her mom meet and share an embrace. I still stand my my original choice however
I apologize for the long comment and large spoilers but I’ve been wanting to talk about it.

@RogerRoger Here, here! Thanks for your thoughts and I can definitely see your perspective. If nothing else, the game makes one think and re-evaluate life and the choices we make, and the effects we have on those around us. I like it when games stilulate me to ponder the content and I like it when a game, book, or movie won’t shy away from ethical dilemmas to foster some thoughts and discussion. And in the end, we all learn from one another’s point of view. I really believe in that — maintaining an open mind is important to discovery. I love it when games and movies keep me thinking about the narrative for days afterward. That’s why some 7/10 games like this are actually more enjoyable to me sometimes than 9/10 games that are just polished superficial unadulterated fun.

@KratosMD I meant to ask u this the other day when u mentioned it but forgot. Is hollow knight as good as everyone says? I'm definitely getting it when I releases on ps4. Next spring?

I beat Dragons Dogma. I surprised by the post-game because it wasn't post-game, the game just wasn't over. It was a really fun game. I feel like it had a really interesting story that just needed to be told better. The ending threw me for a loop. The darkness and big hole after you defeat the Dragon were surprises. Then I did not expect you to become God. I didn't expect that at all. I'm not sure how it all connected or was foreshadowed, but if anyone can explain that would be helpful. I thought the part where you were a god before you stabbed yourself was some good storytelling though as you just wait for something to happen going mad and becoming lonely. It took be a bit to figure out that you had to stab yourself. I also liked the themes of choice rather than destiny, I really liked that idea. Dragon ended up being a interesting villain once he started talking a lot. Then once you woke up on the beach it felt a little inconclusive, like they needed a little bit of an epilogue after that. Overall nuts ending. They should also give you an idea of why you want to collect 20 wakestones as I was just confused when that happened.
All in all here's to an expanded sequel that puts more choice in the story as I liked the bits where you had choice.

@Jaz007 Will you be doing the dlc, Dark Arisen I think it is called? The difficulty does ramp up quite a bit I thought, and I gave up a couple of hours after starting it.

@JohnnyShoulder No, I just skipped it. I really liked the game, but didn’t want to start doing extra dungeons and stuff. I wanted to finish it so it didn’t lost among my unbeat games. Almost 40 hours was enough for me with it. I wasn’t in the mood for the extra difficulty either.

Prey.
40 hours of pure fun and I'll surely play it again sometime since I feel I used only half of the game mechanics.

Last week I beat Mass Effect 2, however, I've spent a lot of time trying to get my thoughts on it. This is the best I can manage.

The story immediately makes it clear that bad stuff is gonna happen, and the Commander has to Shepard some fresh meat for a dangerous mission. It gives a sense of urgency that I appreciate, and there's an interesting grey shade as well, since Shepard has to work with Cerberus (a not nice organization from the first game) in order to have the resources for the mission. Plenty of people tend to call you out on it, even though your crew don't seem to be terrible. Speaking of crew, hoo boy, Shepard has some real basket cases with him this time. Two squadmates from Mass Effect return, but we also have Cerberus operatives Miranda and Jacob, Assassin Thane, kinda shady doctor Mordin, Justicar Samara (think über powerful space cop), Krogan Grunt (Yes, that is his name), Convict Jack, and with DLC, Thief Kasumi and former gang leader Zaeed. Grey indeed.

Thing about the story, is that most of it is prepping and recruiting all these whackjobs for your suicide mission, while getting the occasional tidbit about the newest threat. It feels like there's less than Mass Effect 1, and it's...odd. To it's credit, the setup is great and I like the Loyalty Missions, kinda sidequests where you explore the character of your squadmates, and these are well done, giving some more layers to your team. This is what your doing away from all the prep work though, so it's strange as an overall story.

The gameplay is another dividing line for many. It feels more shooter than RPG here this time. Guns no longer have infinite ammo and heat chambers, or mods. The special ammo now count as powers, and inventory is limited to one gun of each type. Battles, due to this streamlining feel even easier than before, since I mostly relied on my guns and still got through fine. Again, it's strange. I enjoyed playing it, but the gameplay feels like it's lost fluff but lost challenge to get that playability.

And finally, graphics. They look better than before, but there's still an occasion where the framerate gets junky (mostly during cutscenes) and texture pop-in is still a thing. Though thankfully there's no Untextured Saren Face staring into your soul.

Again, I feel strange on this. I enjoyed the game, but I'm not sure if it lives up to the hype. Still good, maybe not GOAT.

@Kidfried I barely used any powers, aside from the occasional Overload or Warp from a teammate. I had the basic soldier build (which I did by accident in the first game, but kept here for consistency), so there wasn't too much aside from Adrenaline Rush and spraying with the machine gun. It feels like a step down to me, since you needed to be tactical before, at least until the end. And here's me shooting everything in Mass Effect 2.

I agree that the cast are the highlight. I think BioWare make their money on the strength of their writing, and this was when they had their A-game.

@KratosMD Funnily enough, I'm the opposite. I've already made two $100+ purchases this month, so I'm just clearing games out. I've also never played Dead Space. Not much of a horror guy I am.

@KratosMD Isn't the third one the least scary though?

Mass Effect 2 is bloody brilliant. I think I completed it three times (initial play, paragon with everyone surviving, and a renegade femshep game). The Shadow Broker DLC is excellent and Arrival links into ME3 brilliantly.

@Thrillho @RogerRoger The DLC was definitely some good story content. The Shadow Broker was fun to play through and Arrival was a good tie in to ME3. I actually started the 3rd game after I wrapped 2, but forgot about Arrival. After playing it and restarting my 3 save, it actually made the opening make more sense.

Fallout 4.

I tried getting through that game, just couldn't. A shame too, because it was really engaging at first.

Just finished Fatal Frame for the PS2. It was a great experience overall, although very reminiscent, in some respects, of Resident Evil. That's not a bad thing, though. Creeping around a haunted mansion solving puzzles and fighting baddies as you incrementally unlock different parts of the house is fundamentally appealing in an almost Metroidvanian way. It's not like this game doesn't have its own identity, though: the much more Japanese setting and especially the ghost photography make it feel fundamentally different from almost anything else I've ever played.

Some aspects of the experience are stronger than others. The English voice work is incredibly bad, although, given the almost dreamlike tone of the game, the stilted line delivery almost kind of works here and can sometimes add to the creepiness. Some of the character models are pretty chunky looking (probably due to it being an early, mid-budget PS2 game), but the (pre-rendered?) backdrops are absolutely gorgeous (in a creepy, haunting sort of way) and go a long way toward making this look nicer than it has any right to. The combat is interesting, and involves building up charges on your camera by targeting ghosts for as long as possible before taking a picture. This does mean it can be easy to pick off a lot of enemies from afar, though, which doesn't seem to totally jive with other game mechanics, like the zero shot, where you wait until the ghost is actively rushing you to take a picture for more points and higher damage. You use points accumulated from battling ghosts to unlock functions on your camera. While I liked gradually powering up the Camera Obscura, I didn't necessarily care for the system that allowed you to use consumable resources to activate special powers, as those powers are very expensive to unlock and don't always work as well as advertised. Overall, though, the combat is fun, creative, and a great alternative to traditional survival horror combat mechanics.

One other annoyance was the behavior of some ghosts, who would often spend much of the battle teleporting behind me, which would often lead to annoying sequences where I'd have to aim, leave the camera mode after they teleport, run to the other end of the room, turn around, aim, only to have to repeat the process a few more times until they decide to actually stay on one side of the room and start attacking.

There's a LOT of good in this game. It's well-paced, giving you a lot of stuff to see and do over the course of eight hours or so. The atmosphere is fantastic, with the visuals and sound design (wailing ghosts and some incredibly creepy music) creating an oppressive and sometimes overwhelming aura of evil in the environment. Many of the ghost designs are great. And the story is simple but effective and pretty sad once you realized what caused this massive haunting to begin with.

The fixed camera angles and tank controls are pretty characteristic of survival horror games at the time. I personally love them, especially when the camera placement gets creepily creative (any sort of drastic viewpoint change in the camera always fills me with apprehension, as this sort of technique is often used to set up environmental scares).

One of the better survival horror games on the PS2. I'm excited to finally get into this series, especially considering this first game is considered by many fans to be the worst entry in the original PS2 trilogy. I can see why this series became such a cult favorite.

Yeah, it was because of the repetitive gameplay, and most of the missions not really having much story significance. It felt like a tightly strung narrative, and then they just send you around for 36 hours to do small time busywork, and the story ground to a halt. It wouldn't be so bad if there were things to do in the world, but there aren't.

I've been on the fence about getting the Yakuza games for years. I think it's always been a little off-putting that you can't drive.

@Kidfried

I like what I've played of Yakuza 0, but I'm not hugely "moved by it." It's alright. The story is pretty good, and the ridiculous machismo of the characters is entertaining, but the gameplay is a bit repetitive for my tastes (which is less of a problem for other beat em up games that are shorter and often emphasize a variety of interesting levels). The quality of the presentation itself is also somewhat uneven, like Bayonetta, transitioning between cutscenes and these odd visual novel-esque sequences with static images.

Hmm, yeah, that's why I'm on the fence. Just not sure I would enjoy something like that.

Although maybe I should try it just to know. Because if I don't like it, I certainly won't like Shenmue.