Review The Last Game You Beat

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Re: Review The Last Game You Beat

Postby AnimeGamer183 » Wed Jul 16, 2014 11:46 am

Yeah I took a look at the currently announced RPGs on the PS4, and it might actually change my decision on getting one so hastily, but im still saving up for it and i'll make a concrete decision later, but I have been really back and forth about it. Basically im only buying for FF15 and Kingdom Hearts 3 and Type-0. And only Type-0 I am convinced currently will be a great game, those other 2 are still up in the air cause square hasnt been consistent lately. There are other games but... im just so lost in gaming now a days there only a few games I even wanna check out. I am curious about Bloodborne too, but im just still wondering if any of this really warrants a purchase of a PS4 right now.
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Re: Review The Last Game You Beat

Postby mue 26 » Fri Jul 18, 2014 12:33 am

I feel sorry for today's youngsters, having never experienced that golden age where quirky Japanese games were at the top of the food chain. I'm talking about the days when TIME CRISIS was widely understood to be the best game ever made! The days when you could bring a friend to your house and impress them with BATTLE ARENA TOSHINDEN and it was totally normal! The days when you didn't need a PC to play Black and White because you had DOSHIN THE FUCKING GIANT instead! I'm talking playing DYNAMITE COP on co-op until 1am, I'm talking about realizing that the greatness BLUE STINGER was too much for a kid to fathom and promising you'll play it in 15 years time when you'll be just about ready for it (it's almost time, squeee!). I'm talking about the days when the consensus was that the Japanese made the best football games and white people football game makers would never ever catch up.

Now look at where we are. Tamagochis have been relegated to mere fashion accessories for gothic lolitas. It's a damn shame.

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Re: Review The Last Game You Beat

Postby Jokatech19 » Sun Jul 20, 2014 10:51 am

VELOCITY
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Here it is. My review of a popular and very acclaimed psp mini that came out in 2012. It was designed by Futurlab, a British development company that also designed the addictive game "Coconut Dodge." They have a very meticulous and perfectionist pedigree as a company, and have never skimped on their projects from what I've noticed. They even have some funny commercials advertising the release of the follow up to Velocity which just came out on PS3/Vita. Alot of people would expect a mini to just be a few moments of fun that end up being worth just the $4 you paid for it. However, companies like Futurlab aim to make bonified gems that are timeless, even within the restrictions of the PSN.

I can't say anything bad about Velocity. In fact, I am blown away by how much fun the game is, and how much content is jammed into it. You pilot a space ship crafted and designed by ingenious engineers, some of whom have been captured as hostages by a belligerent alien force that is threatening the galaxy. You are making you way through their forces in pursuit of a "horizon event" that is about to unleash a black hole explosion. At least, I think that's how it goes. There are captives in that vicinity and as you rescue the engineers early in the game, they upgrade the ship for you. Besides that, there are powerups available in various pods throughout certain levels. In this game, you are battling hostile forces as well as elaborate mazes that threaten to trap and destroy your ship while on your rescue mission.
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Velocity is at its core, a space shooter. But it's so much more. Your ship controls rather smoothly with the analog stick or with the control pad. You fire your main guns with the X button. You throw bombs in any of the 4 main directions by holding the direction down and tapping the 0 button. You also have the ability teleport your ship across the screen by holding [] and placing the appearing cursor within any safe area. You then also have a long teleportation move that lets you drop a limited number of "telepads" at any point using the Y button and return to any one of them by pressing L and selecting it on the appearing map screen. You boost with the R button, and will need to do this, albiet safely, to get through the levels in time. Among the powerups you get, there are special weapons, health, and ammo for the special weapons. The special weapons include a spray modification for your gun, and a laser additive to your gun. You'll need the laser somewhat for some of the annoying armored enemies in the later missions. And you'll need the spray for the dense enemy crowds in some locations.
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The levels get very deep and challenging and require you to have accuracy with your teleporting and think quickly as there are often tight time limits. There are often gates blocking your progress that require you to use your guns and bombs to hit each switch in sequence to open that particular color coded gate. Going out of order resets the lock mechanism, and often there are many different color gates to disable. As you can imagine, it is a task. Not to mention, this is still a space shooter and you will encounter tenacious enemies while doing all of this. I love it. The switches have to be hit on the side indicated by their flashing cursor. They can also be buried inside alcoves, so you will have to throw boms in all kinds of directions to deactivate the switches.

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There are still image cutscenes at a few points in the game, and there is a communications log in the player computer screen on the main menu that is updated with interesting logs as you go through the game. You also collect trophies in this room. This room is dedicated to the extras. What they put in here is astounding. They put a game of minesweeper in here to play for fun, a dossier of the games enemies. A concept art folder giving a brief rundown of the company's work. An art folder containing all of the cutscene art in the game as you unlock it, the communications log I mentioned earlier, the trophy room I mentioned just now- which has unbelievable achievements, and Bonus missions- which is another huge game in itself that you actually have to unlock the levels for while playing the main game. Bonus missions are several times harder than the main game, and they have objectives as well. It's like MSG VR Missions is to Metal Gear Solid. Part of your achievements are to beat these impossible bonus missions. I'm on the second one. There are about 20 of them. So yes, they have abolutely jam packed this mini title and then some. The music throughout was pretty impressive. After beating the game, you get a huge cliff hanger ending that I'm growing less and less fond of these days. I found myself reading the last communication logs in hopes of getting some kind of closure or follow up information. The final log explains further what happened at the very end, but the games leaves you with a "to be continued." Even the credits are a mini shmup, and for such a huge and great game, the credits are surprisingly short. Needless to say, it's a perfect 10 game, that never quite got a perfect 10.

Until now 10/10

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I wonder if I could get paid one day for these reviews...........hmmmmm..........

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Re: Review The Last Game You Beat

Postby elfshadowreaper » Mon Jul 21, 2014 11:02 am

So I just beat Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons yesterday. I have mixed feelings about it.

The game was great. I loved the controls. It wasn't hard at all, but that was OK given what type of game it was. The visuals were awesome. The game did an awesome job of fleshing the world out.

If you haven't played it don't read the rest of this...
When I first started I assumed I was playing two human boys. And that may be true, but as I progressed in the game a thought came to my mind: "What if I'm not playing full-sized humans?" And about 20 minutes later I realized I was correct.

There were times that I thought the game wasn't fleshed out enough. The part where I was in the tower was lacking. After seeing the tower for quite a while I didn't spend enough time actually in the tower. I thought maybe I would have an encounter with the resident of the tower but that never happened. And later all the giants I saw were dead.

Last chance, major spoilers ahead.....

I'm also a sucker for a love story, so when it turned out the girl was a spider I was really disappointed. I should have seen that coming though from the cave drawings and the girl jumping easily. But I know the game wasn't about love, apart from familial love.

What really left me disappointed was the death of the older brother. Once it was obvious the older brother was doomed the phrase "the young must die so the old can flourish" kept coming to my mind. I get that they loved their father and wanted to save him but for the older brother to die in the process of saving his father, while heroic, left me feeling kinda blah.

But I realize the ending with the younger brother wouldn't have been nearly as powerful if the older brother had lived. It was very cool how the younger brother had to use his brother's strength to swim across the body of water.

All in all it was a great game.

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Re: Review The Last Game You Beat

Postby Kenny » Sun Aug 10, 2014 10:42 pm

Long overdue for this one. Just finished the Devil May Cry Collection. Here's my take on each one:

Devil May Cry: The best one. It's simple, to the point and it has the best story out of all of them because of its sheer simplicity. And even though the cutscenes aren't as tricked out as the later installments, I think it makes them that much more impactful when they happen. Only drawback is the limited moveset, but i'm fine with that.

Devil May Cry 2: The worst one. Even after all these years, it's still god-fucking-awful. I totally do NOT get the people who prefer this one to DmC. Non-existent storyline (where Dante barely does and says anything during the cutscenes), terrible graphics, dull and easy as fuck gameplay where the enemies and bosses are a complete and utter joke. I mean, FUCK. I never played the mode with the girl cause FUCK THAT SHIT. And fuck this game while we're at it.

Devil May Cry 3: Very good overall. Yeah, it's too fucking hard sometimes but once I get a handle on the fight system I start getting used to it. Story is decent, I suppose. It's too busy showing off the action scenes rather than telling me anything substantial about Dante and Vergil, which is a shame since because it's intriguing what happens to Vergil in the original game. Probably the best fight system in the original series.

Bonus - DmC: Having finished the game again, I can say it's still really good. I noticed more glitches this time where the level would lock up due to enemies not spawning in their proper places which caused me to load the save file again. Story is still wasted potential, while it may work in context with the rest of the game they could've done MORE with it. And the Bill O'Reilly boss is still cheesy as hell.

But I love the fight system here. It's the most complicated out of all the DMCs but once you get used to it, its fun to chain link and switch weapons on the fly.

If I had to rank them, it'd go like this: DMC1 > DMC3/DmC > shoving bamboo under my fingernails > DMC2

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Re: Review The Last Game You Beat

Postby Axm » Mon Aug 11, 2014 8:56 am

4?

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Re: Review The Last Game You Beat

Postby OL » Mon Aug 11, 2014 10:30 am

Yeah, my personal favorites are either 3 or 4. The first game is excellent, no argument there, and the second game is indeed pretty poor (I don't remember it necessarily playing badly, it mostly just has incredibly boring aesthetics that don't inspire you to keep playing at all, although it does feature my favorite design for Dante). But I see 3 as the place where the series really came into its own and concretely knew what it needed to be, and 4 simply continued that great sense of identity (albeit with one really great change, in the inclusion of Nero and his own style of gameplay). 4 also easily has the best story, in my eyes. The story isn't ground-breaking, but it's solid and entertaining and doesn't just feel like a random jumble of events like the other games did.
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Re: Review The Last Game You Beat

Postby Kenny » Mon Aug 11, 2014 2:47 pm

I really tried playing 4 twice. I have the game downloaded in a HDD from years back and I rented it on the PS3.

I just kept getting really bored, which is funny cause it's hardly any different from 1 & 3. I guess at that point I was like "this is the exact same game with a couple new moves, there's no reason for me to play this".
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Re: Review The Last Game You Beat

Postby AnimeGamer183 » Mon Aug 11, 2014 4:35 pm

^ Kind of how I feel about God of War Ascension.
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Re: Review The Last Game You Beat

Postby Kenny » Mon Aug 11, 2014 5:33 pm

I would've played it anyway except the on-going story is just not that great. That's about the only time I will ever tolerate a "copy-paste" kind of game.

As with God of War, I was done after the first one.
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Re: Review The Last Game You Beat

Postby Axm » Mon Aug 11, 2014 10:06 pm

I did QA for a year with Sony and had God of War 3 for a good 3 months. Was done with it before I even started. That game is still broken as fuck fyi.
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Re: Review The Last Game You Beat

Postby AnimeGamer183 » Tue Aug 12, 2014 12:21 am

I really enjoyed god of war 3, mainly for its scale in certain parts that the PS2 would have never been able to do, that being said it still feels kind of PS2ish, so does Ascension, almost wanna say even more so. But God of War 2 is definitely the cream of the crop for that series, Kenny you should go back and consider the second game if you have any interest in that story. Some people hate kratos character, as hes not exactly a relatable guy, but I definitely find him to be a complex and unique character, kind of like playing the bad guy role in a game for a change, but at the same time not.
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Re: Review The Last Game You Beat

Postby Axm » Tue Aug 12, 2014 3:50 am

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Valiant Hearts: The Great War (PS4)

Graphics
Really one of the most artistic games out there along the same lines of quality as Okami, where everything looks hand drawn. Because I played it on PS4 it was ofcourse in 1080p and it really brought a level of clarity that you can almost feel.
Because this is a game about WW1, lots of explosions are around and the environment changes as the game's scripted scene's progress while you walk along.

Story

I dont want to spoil anything but overall it's pretty good. You have 3 character plots that switch from every level to sometimes even all 3 within 1 level. By the end of the game you learn more about each soldiers personality and how in the end no matter what side they are on, they are still human and want the war to end.
If you're a history buff you will love this game because they really delve deep into every item and event that you come across and why it was important in the war. So I learned quite alot of cool tid-bits.

Sound

One of the biggest highlights from this game is the beautiful score throughout the game that improves it's visceral effect.
Sound effects also develop a unique characteristic after awhile.

Gameplay

Here's where I have some criticism. This is essentially a puzzle game with the occasional QTE. The problem is that while the puzzles are smart and fun, they arent really that challenging. So many times you can just breeze through the game without any real challenge. Atleast for me, I got through it easily. It seems maybe they wanted to highlight this as more of an overall experience and less of a "game" game. Regardless though it was enjoyable, especially puzzle's involving the use of the dog.
But this enjoyment is also abit stiffled by the fact it is a relatively short game. I think it must have been about 6 hours or so long? And I also collected all of the collectables and did alot of the misc. trophies without really trying to hard at all.
For the $15 I paid, I would have wanted perhaps one or two more hours out of it to feel satisfied. For $10 I think this game would have made more sense. So I recommend those interested to wait another month or so for it to drop.
Ubi-Soft Montreal did a good job though.

Overall I give it a 3/5

+Great experience
+Fun gameplay
-Short
-Easy
Last edited by Axm on Tue Aug 19, 2014 9:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Review The Last Game You Beat

Postby Axm » Tue Aug 19, 2014 9:32 pm

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Need for Speed: Rivals(PS4)

I picked this game up for $40 during the black Friday sale before I moved to Japan. I played it for awhile back then got bored with it and put it down. So already we’re off to a bad start.. but recently I picked it back up again and finished it. So here is my review.

Graphics

I’ll start off on a positive note here and say the graphics are good. Although it is definitely not the best looking PS4 game you can get out there, it's adequate enough to say it can be a PS4 game. In saying that though it is not far off from what the PS3 version looks like either. Don't expect to be wow'ed with this after playing other far better looking PS4 games. Aesthetically too it’s a bore. You wont find much inspiration here past the sight of your car majestically flying off a cliff into the ocean.
You also ofcourse get the classic super graphixz EA glossy filter spread over everything with the annoying random flashes of lighting that try way to hard to be cool.

Gameplay

Where do I begin..
What starts off as basically a quasi Burnout style game of cops and racers, it evolves into something much worse. The game fails to captivate anyone with abit of intelligence past the first few hours. It’s a simple experience that you wont find much replay value in.

Game mode races include; as a Racer: Do a race against time, Do a race getting away from a cop and lastly, Do a race against others.
As a cop: Race to a destination, Catch a single racer and finally, Catch multiple racers. Wow..captivating stuff.

Here’s where it falls apart.
You have this big open world, it’s so big you will need to use the quick travel feature in the map constantly to get to an event that you want, effectively ruining the point of a big open world.
The world is very samey. Making remembering where something is or was on the map pretty hard.
Besides the races, the only other objective to do is to do jumps around the environment which do nothing but give you frustration cause half the time you’ll just end up crashing your car and needing to find a repair station or worse yet, you do a jump, crash and have to start over a race because you lost everyone and your car is destroyed.

Random normal cars are EVERYWHERE. Making it hard to have a fun race or capture another car without worrying about if theirs a car around the corner you’re going to hit going 140mph. Other cop cars are also in the way at the same time. If you are playing as a cop, you’ll just wish they left you alone to take out the racers because 9 times out of 10 they are useless.

Rubber banding is blatantly apparent.
You hit a cop, it slows him down for a second and then suddenly he’s caught right back up to you as if it didn't matter what you did. In races you catch up and pass everyone, you drive waaay in front getting a huge lead on the race, but suddenly they all catch up to you as if they always were as fast as you were.
You play as a cop, same deal. Racers you hit will bounce back and run away faster then ever because you hit them.
Which brings me to the next point.

You leveled up? Have a new car unlocked that you paid for with your ridiculously unlimited pool of credits? It doesn't matter you will not benefit from your upgraded car.
Not only because of rubber banding, but because the faster your car, the more wanted you are by default or as a cop, the faster your racers become. Effectively negating the purpose and advantage of getting a new car.
And the races and racers themselves scale to your current cars level.

So you really might aswell stick with around a level 2 car that will fly under the radar more, is easier to control, is slower so you can avoid the constant normal cars in the way and so you are infact tougher aswell because ofcourse the faster you hit something the more damage you take.

The controls themselves are also a very basic arcady affair. Brake around a corner and turn the wheel to drift automagically.
Shoot the electric thing at the other car. Etc. You have seen it all before. It’s very repetitive.

Sound

The sound effects are OK at best. The music is awful and I disabled it after hearing the same songs over and over again. The sound design also does nothing to really impact gameplay either, you’’ hardly be able to hear other racers engines or tires over your own so you might aswell turn the volume down entirely and just play some of your own music over it. Your own music will probably be the best thing about playing this game. It gives me a chance to catch up on podcasts too.

Story

Jesus Christ it’s bland.
“I am a racer… you are an obstacle.” *car zooms by
“I am the law… you will be brought to justice.” *Sirens go off
*Cue EA style, Michael Bay inspired lighting and futuristic computer sounds with a cut away to a news chopper
Then literally rinse and repeat that 10 times over with the same generic one liners.
Theirs no main character, protagonist. Theirs no plot. Theirs nothing to motivate you to see the next cut scene. Theirs not even a phone call from a friend while you drive around telling you to meet up for a race. It couldn't be more under-imaginative and anti-story.
I would have left this section out of the review, but because it’s such an eye sore to watch it’s part of the experience and thus part of the review.


In the end, it's a bargain bin game plain and simple.
I give it a generous..
1.5/5

Unfortunately though I am just a few hours away from getting the 100% platinum trophy so im going to do that and then sell the game. ](*,)

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Re: Review The Last Game You Beat

Postby Kenny » Sun Aug 24, 2014 5:53 pm

Image

Vergil's controls are weird. There are alot of pauses in his style which makes him feel too jerky to handle. And I don't get the choice to use animated cutscenes as opposed to mo-cap, I guess it was cheaper to do? In any case, I don't really like the style. It looks like a half-finished animatic.

And yes, story.

Hmm.

Meh.
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