Topic: Games you've recently beat

@mookysam Good to know the game still hold up relatively well, I think some just assume they are unplayable or something these days probably due to how dated they are on a techincal level.

@Kidfried It's always fun to get into new franchises. I've wanted to get into MGS for years now but it always seemed intimidating.

@JohnnyShoulder Yeah it's a shame that dated graphics are often equated with a game being unplayable. Often if the core design of a game was rock solid back then, it will still play reasonably well today. One of the biggest hindrances when it comes to old 3D games are things like poor camera and controls. Luckily apart from the aiming MGS didn't have those issues.

@mookysam @RogerRoger not to mention you can buy a digital version of the PS1 MGS game on the Vita too

@RogerRoger Thanks. I bought it for the Vita. The touch screen stuff doesn't sound like it will bother me (hopefully) and I'll play it right away on there.

@FullbringIchigo PS1 games are nice on the Vita.

I would feel remiss if I didn’t mention how much I enjoyed recently finishing Horizon Zero Dawn. I bought the game day 1 and played it for its opening weeks. I liked it quite a bit, but eventually about half way through I got sidetracked and it was left dormant for many months. I finally felt motivated to resume it and I have to say, the second half of the game is much better than the first. I was confused about the story in those beginning hours but once everything starts coming together towards the end, then it really starts to shine. I also feel the diversity of combat and gameplay options that become available later make it much more fun in the second half. The enemies become much more difficult and that final sequence of the game was quite the challenge. After finishing it, I really adore Aloy as a character. I liked her before, but so much more after the events at the end crystallize. A well deserved PlayStation icon. Such a great ending to the game and amazingly crafted setting and lore. It’s a game that has a memorable narrative that I’ll think about for weeks, with a lot of deep philosophical subjects that can be gleaned if one wishes to ponder it. Yet, it doesn’t preach to you or let the social commentary distract from the fact that it is, foremost, a game and it’s primary purpose is to entertain. I like it when games can achieve that balance.
These accolades aside, I would probably still not consider it my personal GotY for 2017, as I think NieR Automata did all those same things with captivating and immersive gameplay coupled with a deep ponderous narrative, but did it in ways that were even more interesting and non-traditional. Honestly, Horizon doesn’t reinvent the third person open world combat action RPG-lite genre in a large way, but to its credit, it brings new things to the table in the form of never before seen characters, a fictional world with an eerie prophetic feel, and a polished and smooth presentation.

@Kidfried Yes, very true about the combat. Part of the reason that I loss a little bit of interest in the game initially was that I wasn’t doing the combat right. Early on you can get by just crouching in stealth and doing silent strikes and melee kills all day long on the early machines and human enemies. But only when I went back and started experimenting with all the different styles of weapons, traps, explosives, and elemental ammo, then did I feel the satisfaction of the diversity the game provides. And the enemies mid and late game (Glinthawks, Stormbirds, Thunderjaws, Snapmaws, and Stalkers) force you to approach them differently. You can’t just use one technique, or just try to melee them to death. Each one is a mini-puzzle on how to best approach them. Tying them down, light them on fire, freeze them, electrify them, override another machine to help you out, etc, etc. My favorite technique for some of the harder enemies was tying them down with the ropecaster, but then rather than run up to do a R1 strike which would usually free them, I would fire off a bunch of sticky bombs onto them ... then rather than only getting in one hit before they are freed, I could get about 4-5 bombs that would explode on them sequentially as they were getting out of the ropes. It was pretty much the only way I could bring down a Stormbird.

As far as how the game looks, I agree it looks fantastic, especially the environment and the artistic design is the best of any game I can think of. The costumes on NPCs were so intricately planned and detailed. I found myself just staring at the clothes and jewelry during a cut scene and admiring how they were able to make discarded old trash and machine parts look like beautiful armor, headdresses and necklaces, and all still feeling very “tribal” with the futuristic flotsam as the base materials. The character’s hair and makeup was so interesting as well. There are some really, really creative people over there at Guerrilla.
One criticism was the animations, however. The lip syncing, head bobbing, and darting eyes unfortunately caused some uncanny valley moments.

@Kidfried Oh yes, very true! I meant facial animations. The physical animations of running, crouching, jumping, and climbing are superb. I love how Aloy moves. She has the grace of a cat when she dives and rolls or climbs. I liked the climbing since it was pretty forgiving and if you just point in the right direction Aloy will climb, reach, or jump if it is a reachable ledge or handhold. I even like the little slo-mo “bullet-time” type of moment they put in when making a rather long or difficult jump from one handhold to another.

@Th3solution @Kidfried I thought the soundtrack was awesome in HZD too, very dynamic in the way it changes tempo depending on what is happening.

Like you guys have mentioned the combat was very varied due to different tactics you could switch to on the fly. My favourite weapon was the one that (iirc) sonic booms the different parts of the enemies off. Found it pretty devastating against the harder enemies.

I thought Alloy's arc in the story was almost perfectly judged. I was surprised on how much the story grabbed me, especially towards the end.

The sign the sets a great game from just a good one I find is if you wanna continue playing after you have finished the story. Some games I find I can't wait till it is all over so I can move one to the next game. I couldn't get enough of HZD and ended up playing it for a few days after I'd finished it to mop up some of the side quests and combat challenges. Great game!

@JohnnyShoulder Agreed. Yeah, sometimes I want to just go right back to it after finishing a good game. But lately I have to just force myself to move on so I can experience different games and get on with the next one from the backlog. Another sign of a good game is that while playing it you get so engrossed that you forget to eat and have to set a hard time limit to go to bed or rest your eyes and speak to other human beings. That’s happening now with SotTR for me.

@Th3solution its a shame more people haven't played nier. One of my favorite games ever. When I talk to my friends about games not one of them have ever heard of it...well that is before I raved about how great it is.

On topic, HZD is a superb game. But as far as difficultly goes, I found a few parts kinda hard but not overly hard. I own the expansion but have not played it yet and I have heard it is challenging. Looking forward to a sequel, but probably not this gen.

@ellsworth004 I tried the DLC but couldn't get into it. This was mainly because I went into it from the end-game but without having picked the game up in months and I just couldn't get back into it with the controls etc. I got absolutely wiped out by the first enemy in the new area and just struggled too much to enjoy it.

@Thrillho I have the same experience right now with Blood and Wine for the Witcher 3. I've beaten the base game and heart of stone back on Xbox one, and did a good part of blood and wine on it. So after a year I tried to go into blood and wine on ps4 but even on just the story difficulty I get destroyed by that bruxae at the beginning of the story. It's so sad as I wanted to complete it but just can't.

@beemo there is no lower difficulty than just the story I don't know, I've already given up, but maybe I'll give it another chance.

@Thrillho are you speaking of nier dlc? Or hzd?

@NecuVise Applying the quen sign (added armour/shield) a lot helps so much in The Witcher 3, especially when upgraded. The bubble shield that gives you health when hit by enemies was a godsend on Death March. It's that overpowered I actually stoped using it because I felt like I was cheating.

@ellsworth004 HZD. Didn't know about Nier DLC.

@NecuVise I had the same problem with TW3 actually. I'd completed the game a long time before and before they introduced enemy scaling. When I came back for the DLC, it took a while to get used to the controls and (previously) low level wolves kept annihilating me.

@beemo I can't upgrade anything as I've just started the expansion. When you play goty version you have an option to go straight to either of expansions and that's what I did in this case so no option for upgrading any equipment. @ApostateMage I know, as I've already competed base game and heart of stone, but starting fresh in blood and wine after a year of not playing the game is very difficult.
@Thrillho well, the only. Problem is that blood and wine was meant for people who did base game and heart of stone an who are going in with their character into this expansion, but I'm starting fresh here. I remember that back on Xbox one I had no problems at all on normal difficulty but I was very familiar with the game and my Geralt had full Witcher gear.

@Thrillho @NecuVise This very issue was brought up in the reader mail section on a recent episode of the podcast “Sacred Symbols” (Colin Moriarty’s new PlayStation-centric podcast, which I highly recommend if you’re looking for one. It’s my favorite podcast now — subject matter is completely PlayStation and related things and very interesting and well put together) and the suggestion from the fan was that developers should put in a “get me back up to speed” type of mini-tutorial when DLC is released a significant time after the initial game came out. Most of us struggle with getting back into a game that we have had a break from and I often just give up if I try to go back after a long time and can’t quickly remember the controls, story, and other gameplay mechanics. Some games have tutorials in the menu that you can go back to at any time, but they aren’t always well designed for the specific scenario of “I once was good at this game, but I need a brief refresher to trigger my remote memories of how it works”. No Man’s Sky comes to mind for me, although not DLC, it has had the expansions and updates since I last played. I tried to restart after the NEXT update and was so intimidated by the complexity of the menus and I was so lost it seemed hardly worth the effort. I think if I ever go back to it I’ll start over from the beginning.
And I realize @NecuVise that your issue is more that you can’t port over your save progress to the PS4 version so you don’t have all the buffs needed to take on Blood & Wine, which is a slightly different thing that is harder to overcome, but it happens even in games where I still have my progress and level, but am rusty on how to play it.

@Th3solution I don't know how it would work but it's a neat idea.

In a similar vein, I wish more games would do a recap when you load your game. The original MGS did it and most of the time I'd ignore it but now with massive open world games becoming more popular it would be great to have a reminder of what's happened and (more importantly) what you were supposed to be doing.

@Th3solution I'm not even sure that my old Geralt would help me here as I just feel lost and weak Maybe it would as I was very very powerful, level 40 or even higher and now I'm only level 34. Whatever the reason, I just can't complete Blood and Wine.