Rate the Last Game That You Played

[Cfrock]

The Bard's Tale
The one from 2004. There's a lot I like about it, and I lot I don't like. As soon as there're more than three enemies on-screen, fights can become so drawn out and, sometimes, unfair that certain parts of the game have had me genuinely tilted for the first time in years. The viking tombs, for example, can **** right off. The top-down view can often feel restrictive, too, but that's something you kind of get used to after a while.

I imagine if I played this game when it first came out I'd have a deep love for it. It fits in well with the likes of Fable, Morrowind, Dungeon Keeper, and the Discworld and Harry Potter books that were my life in the early- to mid-00s. That kind of light-hearted, highly stylised fantasy with plenty of humour was what I was all about back in my teenage years. Shame I only found this now, when I'm a jaded, miserable old bastard who hates everything.

Ah well.

 

[Terminus]

Stardew Valley - 10/10

I got it 2 days ago and I haven't played anything else

I'd say send help but I'm running a successful jam empire and will rule the world at this rate

 

[misskitten]

Steamworld Dig 2 - just beat the final boss, but plan to get back in and try and discover the rest of the secrets. 10/10, definitely my favourite indie title so far

 

[Deleted member 14134]

Nier Automata 6/10

This game started off really good. The intro blew me away, it throws you right into the action in a fast pace boss battle against a giant machine and forces you to learn the game as you play rather than holding your hand and walking you through every little detail and feature the game has to offer. But right as I was getting close to the end of the the fight I died. While I initally thought that this wouldn't be a problem, I soon realized that the game doesn't have an autosave feature and I would have to go through the entire intro again from the start. This pretty much sums up my experience with this game. Every time the game had something going for it, there was some brain dead design choice included that soured the experience of the game.

I have a long list of complaints, but here are a few brief ones. The combat is rather one note and button mashey and gets quite boring and repetitive after awhile, especially when the game throws you up against foes with beefier health. The world is bland, boring and empty and despite the vast areas of empty space, quite a bit smaller than I had imagined. Instead of seeing new locations often you're often thrown back to the same 3-4 locations throughout the entire game. While the 3 playable characters do look good and the game runs smoothly, the textures are rather bland and often look outright bad. The side quests are either escort missions or fetch quests which once again, have you running back to the same few locations over and over again to find some material for someone. Fast travel isn't unlocked fast enough and gets locked again when you start route b (which I'll talk about soon). As I said before, there is no reliable autosave feature which can make you lose a lot of progress if you die or even if you walk the wrong way at certain moments. Getting certain plug in chips which you can acquire very early make the game extremely easy and rob the player of all sense of challenge. There are so many little things that I can harp on about but I'll leave it at this for now. It honestly felt like the developers put more effort in making sure you can see up 2bs skirt as much as possible rather than focusing on the things that actually mattered.

Towards the end of route A the pace really started to pick up and I found myself enjoying it more and more but the game ending very suddenly and I found myself saying the words I hear spoken to me in bed so very often. "That's it?" Well, that wasn't it, I soon found out that in order to unlock new content and continue the story I had to replay through the game again as 9S, 2b's traveling companion throughout the events of "route A." This route consisted of even more 2D "bullet hell" segments that are easily the most boring part of the game and then running through the exact same campaign a second time but this time with a character with a boring play style with one attack button and a button to hack into enemies which then initiates another 2d bullet time segment but with minimalist graphics (and most of the time very simplistic). While this route did make 9S grow on me more and offered a few new story details, it was absolutely ridiculous to have to play through most of the entire main campaign again. By the time I finished this route and was ready for "route c" which was finally new story content, my experience with the game was already soured enough as I felt like I shouldn't of had to replay the first half of the game twice to unlock the second half of new content.

While the story was alright, I found that the moments directly involving the main characters spoke to me louder than the story moments that affected things on a larger scale. The main characters were well written and I did find they had all grown on me by the time the story ended. I feel like the game could of done a better job of communicating to the player what was going on in certain moments and I found myself often thinking that I missed something. This could perhaps be because I haven't played the previous games in the series or also because my attention was increasingly waning as the game went on. I found the game did have a good sense of humor that fit the tone nicely and while these weren't laugh out loud moments, I often found myself smirking during these moments. Also, the music was fantastic and really help set the atmosphere during those few big moments. I found myself putting it on in the background after a few hours of playing when I wasn't currently playing. Also the credits at the end of ending E is easily one of the coolest ways to end a video game and tied into the games themes very nicely.

In conclusion, Nier Automata is best during it's too few high octane, fast paced main story missions that throws you headfirst into the action and moves the player along at a very fast pace. The music is fantastic, the characters are enjoyable but there are too many poor and lazy choices that hold this game back from being good and instead make it somewhat mediocre.

 

[Spirit]

Nier Automata 6/10

This game started off really good. The intro blew me away, it throws you right into the action in a fast pace boss battle against a giant machine and forces you to learn the game as you play rather than holding your hand and walking you through every little detail and feature the game has to offer. But right as I was getting close to the end of the the fight I died. While I initally thought that this wouldn't be a problem, I soon realized that the game doesn't have an autosave feature and I would have to go through the entire intro again from the start. This pretty much sums up my experience with this game. Every time the game had something going for it, there was some brain dead design choice included that soured the experience of the game.

I have a long list of complaints, but here are a few brief ones. The combat is rather one note and button mashey and gets quite boring and repetitive after awhile, especially when the game throws you up against foes with beefier health. The world is bland, boring and empty and despite the vast areas of empty space, quite a bit smaller than I had imagined. Instead of seeing new locations often you're often thrown back to the same 3-4 locations throughout the entire game. While the 3 playable characters do look good and the game runs smoothly, the textures are rather bland and often look outright bad. The side quests are either escort missions or fetch quests which once again, have you running back to the same few locations over and over again to find some material for someone. Fast travel isn't unlocked fast enough and gets locked again when you start route b (which I'll talk about soon). As I said before, there is no reliable autosave feature which can make you lose a lot of progress if you die or even if you walk the wrong way at certain moments. Getting certain plug in chips which you can acquire very early make the game extremely easy and rob the player of all sense of challenge. There are so many little things that I can harp on about but I'll leave it at this for now. It honestly felt like the developers put more effort in making sure you can see up 2bs skirt as much as possible rather than focusing on the things that actually mattered.

Towards the end of route A the pace really started to pick up and I found myself enjoying it more and more but the game ending very suddenly and I found myself saying the words I hear spoken to me in bed so very often. "That's it?" Well, that wasn't it, I soon found out that in order to unlock new content and continue the story I had to replay through the game again as 9S, 2b's traveling companion throughout the events of "route A." This route consisted of even more 2D "bullet hell" segments that are easily the most boring part of the game and then running through the exact same campaign a second time but this time with a character with a boring play style with one attack button and a button to hack into enemies which then initiates another 2d bullet time segment but with minimalist graphics (and most of the time very simplistic). While this route did make 9S grow on me more and offered a few new story details, it was absolutely ridiculous to have to play through most of the entire main campaign again. By the time I finished this route and was ready for "route c" which was finally new story content, my experience with the game was already soured enough as I felt like I shouldn't of had to replay the first half of the game twice to unlock the second half of new content.

While the story was alright, I found that the moments directly involving the main characters spoke to me louder than the story moments that affected things on a larger scale. The main characters were well written and I did find they had all grown on me by the time the story ended. I feel like the game could of done a better job of communicating to the player what was going on in certain moments and I found myself often thinking that I missed something. This could perhaps be because I haven't played the previous games in the series or also because my attention was increasingly waning as the game went on. I found the game did have a good sense of humor that fit the tone nicely and while these weren't laugh out loud moments, I often found myself smirking during these moments. Also, the music was fantastic and really help set the atmosphere during those few big moments. I found myself putting it on in the background after a few hours of playing when I wasn't currently playing. Also the credits at the end of ending E is easily one of the coolest ways to end a video game and tied into the games themes very nicely.

In conclusion, Nier Automata is best during it's too few high octane, fast paced main story missions that throws you headfirst into the action and moves the player along at a very fast pace. The music is fantastic, the characters are enjoyable but there are too many poor and lazy choices that hold this game back from being good and instead make it somewhat mediocre.

But... I...

But the thing... and...

Dammit

 

[Deleted member 14134]

But... I...

But the thing... and...

Dammit

We might have to agree to disagree on this one.

 

[Spirit]

We might have to agree to disagree on this one.

We agree hot though, right?

 

[Cfrock]

Hard Reset Redux
I got this on sale because of its aesthetic and literally no other reason. Neon, rain-soaked cyberpunk. I bought this game to look at it and no other reason. I had no interest at all in whatever story it was trying to tell me, or even in what the gameplay was like beyond 'functional'.

And it does look quite nice. But it turns out a game gets very boring when you're just looking at it and not caring even one iota about anything else going on. I suppose it says something generally negative that the game wasn't able to grab my interest even a little after six hours, but I wouldn't say I thought it was bad. It was just that once I'd looked at it, I was more or less done with it.

 

[Spirit]

Doom (Switch)

Its fine, nice simple fun, but oh my god its so macho. Too macho, i played for an hour and it was a long hour and i've got no drive to go back to it. Not bad though but not for me.

 

[Cfrock]

Dear Esther
What a hot crock of ****.

You know that bit in games when your bloke starts walking really slow so the crap story that you don't care about can be thrust in your face and it's really frustrating and you just want it to be over so you can do something again?

Yeah, someone made that bit into a game.

The Chinese Room make really, really, bad ****ing games.

 

[Turo602]

Batman: Arkham Knight
So after burning through Batman: Return to Arkham, I've finally been able to play Arkham Knight and have recently finished it. I'm currently working through the extra DLC episodes, but holy sh*t, what a game. It's easily the best for me. They really upped their game in so many ways.

The story is just a vast improvement over previous games. The Arkham Knight may have been a dumb and pointless identity and the reveal wasn't really shocking either, but there were still plenty of big shockers and moments throughout. You can really feel the sh*t piling on Batman's shoulders in this game and the way they went about handling it all was very satisfactory.

Free-flow combat is even more fluid as is traversing the city. Combos are no longer ruined by downed enemies or enemies too far to attack or counter. The quickfire exploding gel has even received a much needed streamlined revision that makes it easier to use in combat and the the wide array of new moves keeps the combat from getting stale.

I honestly don't get why there's so much criticism for the Batmobile. Sure, it's a big part of the game, but you're still going to be gliding around Gotham, beating up bad guys, and doing stealth for the majority of the game. And it's not like the Batmobile itself was awful to use. I actually really enjoyed the many ways it was implemented and it only further added to the feel of Batman (tank battles aside, of course).

I will say however, recycling the Arkham Knight tank battle for Deathstroke was really cheap and unnecessary. I genuinely enjoyed the battle the first time with the Arkham Knight, as it was really tense, but doing it a second time was overkill.

The boss fights in this game were pretty weak in general, which is true for most of the games. Arkham Origins is the only one to have good boss fights all around. Though, this is definitely the better game overall, so I didn't really mind it too much, considering this series isn't exactly known for its boss fights.

Honestly, I hope this is the last we see of this series. It was a good end and continuing it would only cheapen the legacy of these games. Right now, I'd prefer if Rocksteady moved onto a new superhero, specifically Superman, and do him justice like they did Batman. If they ever return to Batman, it should be under a new title, set in a new universe, with a different art style. Though, I take it WB is already working on another game.

9.5/10

 

[Castle]

Fable III

Gee, Peter. For repeatedly insisting that your Fable series is gonna be the OMG BEST AR-PEE-GEE EVAH!!!11!! your third attempt sure is.... weak.

Fable was back in the day when the morality craze was still the greatest sensation that was sweeping video games. And here it is as cartoonish as ever. Basically everyone including yourself is either Superman or Snidely Whiplash. There's an unnecessarily evil dictator who insists he has "good reason" to be an irrational jerk even though he never bothers to share that reason with anyone. And then there's the psychotic captain of industry who's a brutal sadist for no other reason than because rich people are EEEEEVVVVVViiiiiiLLLL!!! which every one knows for a fact, right comrades! Then there's the black freedom fighter woman who's literally all THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!! and WORKERS PARTY OF THE PEOPLE!!!! who looks like the spitting image of the cover girl on every piece of communist propaganda ever.

Politics aside the game itself is enjoyable enough for a once over but has no real lasting appeal. It doesn't take long to get through it anyway and the content leaves much to be desired. The OPIN WHARRLD!!111!! levels are small and mostly for show. While there are a lot of businesses in the few available towns there's never anything useful to purchase. The game sets you up with everything you'll ever need from the get go, which basically amounts to the four weapon types available. Swords and hammers for melee. Pistols and rifles for ranged. Later on you'll magic spells and you can combine the effects of any two of them. Thing is, every weapon improves with you with some weapons gaining additional effects by grinding out achievements. You can get through the game on a single weapon, especially in light of how easy combat is. The enemy variety is remarkably thin. There are really only less than half a dozen enemy types, most of them behave the same way and none of em really ever put up much of a fight. Combat can get pretty exciting, if only for the stylish flourishes and slomo kills that pop off randomly in a fight, some of which make the camera go all loopy.

Armor doesn't even aid in defense. In fact, the game doesn't have armor it has outfits. There aren't many of them and most of em look dweeby. The outfit you wear has no bearing on anything. It is purely cosmetic. Character customization is unremarkable in other areas as well. Tattoos are barely visible, hair styles are dull, make up exists which is as much as can be said for it and there are only a few of everything. There is no character creator so you just get to choose between "dude" and "chick". There are no attributes and skills really. There are three to govern melee ranged and magical aptitude that just naturally improve the more you shoot stab and cast spells. Oh, and you can get fat eating food for no reason. In my entire time I never even *had* food.

The game is also a weak social simulator. You can emote with NPCs for no real reason or significant benefit. Ultimately there's no real effect for NPCs loving or hating you which pretty much undermines the whole point of making such a big deal out of morality. NPCs really only just get *****y if they dislike you. Environments don't really change to reflect your social standing. You can buy any property in the game, and set rent for homes and prices for stores. Homes need constant repairs, and if you buy all of the several dozen homes in the game you will have to repair each and every one of them one by one every few hours because if their condition drops they stop paying rent. This is a constant time consuming chore, and its existence is inexcusable. There is nothing you can do to influence the economy, prices or the value of goods being provided. There's no way to upgrade stores, determine unemployment or poverty levels. Nothing. Zilch. Fable III has no aspects of a social or economic simulator even though it pretends it does.

Ultimately, all of Fable III's bells and whistles are pointless. What's left is a main story that has some amusing moments and a few fun characters but is otherwise forgettable. A numeric score doesn't really do it justice, because it's at least worth a rental or no more than the five bucks I spent at gamestop.

3.5/10

 

[CynicalSquid]

Monster Hunter World - 9.5/10

This is without a doubt the best Monster Hunter game to date. The gameplay is amazing. I like how they kind of made things more user friendly and made the game feel more modern. The gameplay is a lot faster than previous Monster Hunter games and it just feels like the game flows a lot better. Gathering materials is a lot better, I like how things like whetstones and pickaxes are unlimited, and the combat is still really hard to get a grasp of but it feels a lot more fluid. The game looks beautiful. That's pretty much a given though since it's on a home console instead of a handheld system.

The only reason I didn't give it a 10 is because the online is incredibly tedious. You can't join someone's quest unless you all have seen the cutscene of that quest. I just think it's so stupid to have that restriction. If you are playing with friends you all have to start the quest separately and then leave the quest once you have seen the cutscene and then join one of the people's quest who have already watched the cutscenes. Why does it have to be like this? It just is pointlessly pointless. I know it seems like a nitpick but this game promotes co-op play so why is the multiplayer set up in such an asinine way.

 

[Stormageden747]

Fire Emblem: Awakening

10/10!

 

[Spirit]

Dissidia Final Fantasy NT

Fun game, not much in the way of content though which is a shame.

7/10