Rate the last game you finished

[Peppermint Lounge]

Will mention also I experienced none of the technical issues that plagued the Outriders launch. Not a single crash or disconnection during my 50 hours so far.

Finally another appreciated feature is the ability to respec your character any time. No cost, no restrictions. Experiment away.

[t0mby]

Yeah. Quake 2 was a fine game on its own, but it's completely unrelated to the original. And then Quake 3 went on an even more different tangent.

I just want to fight Shamblers and Fiends with creepy Jesus murals watching over things.

They should've just dropped the number 3. It was obvious they were competing with Epics Unreal Tournament. I tried Quake 3 but it felt more like a twitch shooter, enjoyed UT a lot more, in fact it was my jam till moved onto Counterstrike 1.1

[Peppermint Lounge]

Outriders. I know I said finally. I will stop soon. Anyway it's been said but gear is the difference between getting drilled and being OP in an identical scenario. I picked up a Legendary torso piece and with a couple of tier 3 mods I'm melting world tiers I was previously dying in. I also ran a challenge tier 4 expedition solo and beat it. Expedition difficulty even at these lower challenge tiers is way higher than campaign quests at world tier 12. Running around with an OP auto shotgun popping abilities and exploding everything on screen is very well done. These legendary mods make so much difference however legendary drops to date are so rare for me. I've had about four in 55 hours of play. If they dropped at a higher rate the game would have more players staying on. Anyway my score is a solid 8/10 now. Having a very good time.

[Twiztid Elf]

Lost in Random
Well, I think this is my first day one EA game since......oh wow....maybe Burnout 3 on the OG Xbox?
And my first full price EA game since NHL09.
Anyhow, this caught my eye at EA's E3 thing this year. I thought it looked cool. All the early impressions and reviews were favorable, so I decide to grab it, and I'm glad I did.
The Tim Burton art style, NPC characters and voice acting were all absolute top notch. The story itself was a very dark fairytale, and the best story in a game I've played in a very long time.
Despite being interesting and unique, the dice/card based combat did get a little repetitive, but I could so overlook it for all of the games plusses.
8/10

Sonic Colours Ultimate
I remember really enjoying this on the Wii in 2011. I looked back (p13), I gave it an 8/10.
Time hasn't been super kind to Sonic Colours, but it hasn't been cruel either. It's just aged.
I played the PS4 version on PS5, and I had no bugs or glitches at all. But, for an 'ultimate' version of the game, it is rough around the edges. The sound in particular. On cut scenes, all of the sound was really quiet, then the level sound would be way louder. I checked in the settings, and I didn't have it on headphone setting or anything like that. Disappointing.
Still, the fun and enjoyment of the base game still shines through. I had a lot of fun with this again. Some of the levels are an absolute blast, and the wisp/colour powers really mixes it up and provides a lot of variety. It's never boring.
Definitely one of the better 3D Sonic experiences.
7/10

Cruis'n Blast
Ahahahahaha. Believe the hype on this one.
I got tired of reading online about how good this is, so I jumped in.
How the fuck did this game get put out in 2021?
This is just straight up a polished, nuts, whacky arcade racer that stepped out of the late 90's with a new 2020's lick of paint.
Graphics are as good as you're going to get on the Switch, and it runs very smoothly, with the very occasional frame stutter.
But the game is just pure arcade fun. Loading times are virtually non-existent. No race lasts longer than 2 minutes, but is just 2 minutes of crazy shit getting thrown on screen. Dinosaurs, King Kong, UFO's, etc, etc.
Massive, massive San Francisco Rush style jumps.
There's just not a lot of meat on the bones.
And the theme song. OMG the cheezy theme song. Every time going back into the menu's, its a frikken sing along... "Cruuuuuuusin. Ohhhh Yeah! C'mon go cruuuusin'. Cruuuuuuseeeeen. Let's ride! C'mon go cruuusin'. LETS GO Cruuuuuuusin. <unintelligible> LETS GO Cruuuuuuusin. LETS GO Cruuuuuuusin. C'mon C'mon C'mon go cruuuusin'. Cruuuuuuseeeeen."
7/10

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2021/ ... endo_again

When we first played the new theme song, they couldn’t stop laughing and then dancing to the outrageous retro disco vibe.

[t0mby]

I think I played this in the arcade last year with my son. I remember the dinosaurs cos my youngest is Dino mad. It was ok, you either like the Cruisin' games or you don't, it never feels like there's any skill involved.

[Twiztid Elf]

I've never liked Cruis'n games. This is the first one.
I always thought the steering felt too loose.

[t0mby]

Is this the third one or was there another between Crusin' World & Crusin' Blast? I remember when the first one came out among the Daytona's, Rally, Rush and the like, it looked ace but just didn't click with me. Despite how I feel about them it is good to see Eugene Jarvis still overseeing games. His arcade hunting games are good fun.

[Mavy]

Avengers on Gamepass

All that bad press about this game I stayed away from it. Though now it's on Gamepass no reason not to give it a try. Iv really enjoyed it. Graphics were great, story good, characters good. Combat a little dodgy here and there but overall fun.

Not interested in the live service/multiplayer stuff so maybe that's why I enjoyed it so much.

Actually interested in guardians of the galaxy now.

[Gamma]

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (PS5)
Really in two minds about this. It's fun, it obviously looks great, and it's a rare case where the vast majority of the humour lands... it just feels like a lot of work went into stuff that sells the game in screenshots and reviews but doesn't really matter that much in practice. I know raytracing is all the rage but I really wish there was a graphics setting that turned on all effects except RT at 60fps, as it adds very little here. It's crazy how many incidental animations there are that you'll probably never notice. I would have preferred a few more things to do on each destination over some of the visual flair, and while I understand that in terms of development that's chalk and cheese, there's a lot of superfluous detail. Having said that, it's been a while since I've been tricked into standing there like a goon because I thought a cutscene was still playing, and this game got me more than once. It's a looker.

I also found the weapon selection in this one a bit weird... your initial peashooter feels like the only suitable gun to be using in most situations for a long while, with nearly every other weapon giving off strong "save this for a big dude" vibes- high damage, low ammo and/or rate of fire... but on the flipside even though I used some weapons far more than others I didn't have any trouble unlocking all of the upgrades for all of them. I seem to recall getting near the end of previous R&C games and having to actively farm enemies using the less appealing weapons, not an issue here. Rift Apart is a very good game, and a great showcase for the PS5. The new characters are great (Gary was probably my favourite), and I particularly liked the puzzle sections with Clank, I just wish there was a bit more to do beyond blasting through the story and one or two side-quests per location, and that the rifts played a bigger role in the gameplay. 8.5/10


----------


Gato Roboto (Switch)
Great little metroidvania that's similar in scope to Xeodrifter, and often takes the piss out of Metroid. Your spaceship crash lands at the beginning due to the captain's cat running across the control panel- the first twist on the formula is the captain's trapped inside the wreckage so you play as the cat. You quickly find a power suit, but rather than being a straight upgrade it has advantages and disadvantages, and sort of acts as the "normal form" to the cat's "morph ball". Quite a few environmental puzzles are built around figuring out how to get the suit through difficult terrain. Boss battles stood out as being fairly tough compared to the rest of the experience, and it took me multiple attempts to get past a couple of them, but you're never replaying huge sections of the map. Plenty of secrets to find, many of them simply unlockable visual filters for the otherwise black and white graphics ("urine" was one of the first I found). Cute as heck, and short enough that I'll probably revisit it as I have Xeodrifter. 8/10


----------


Chasm (Switch)
This is the part where I should be reviewing Horace, but that's still in the "too hard" basket, and this was on sale for a couple of bucks. Yet another metroidvania, this one unabashedly drawing it's influence from Symphony of the Night. There are tons of equippable weapons, spells and gear, alongside the expected ability upgrades. This had some really mixed reviews, I think it had some major upgrades in post-release patches. Notably there were complaints about the fast travel system which I found particularly strange as this was one of the better ones I've used. The biggest flaw this game has is that's it's almost completely devoid of originality, but while I obviously like to see innovative titles, I'm fine with a game just doing a good job of what it set out to do, and Chasm does that.

What it does do differently is a bit of light randomisation- each individual room in the game is hand-crafted, but the layout of the rooms is generated from a seed each time, sort of a bit like Sundered. I can't really speak to how well it does this as I've only played through once, but I did notice that save room placement was less predictable than most games of this ilk, which I think worked in its favour. The save system is delightfully simple, in that when you die, the game returns to the state it was in at your last save, any items found are gone, etc. Sounds silly but a lot of people seem to complain about these sorts of save systems these days, and you end up with these weird hybrids where there are save rooms, but also auto-saves, and it's hard to know what's actually happened to the world when you die. Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed this one, even if it was a bit on the easy side after the first hour. Can't promise I'll try it again to see how the procedural generation goes, simply because I'd prefer to spend that time on something new, but I wouldn't rule it out either. Good comfort food. 7.5/10

[Gamma]

Dandara (Switch)
Yeah I'm just going to stop pointing out that these games are metroidvanias. Dandara does the most to distinguish itself from the others through its unique control scheme. It looks like a platformer, but your only means of movement is to leap directly from one surface to another. You can't otherwise jump, you can't even walk. I won't lie, this was a huge adjustment and I spent the first half hour or so really frustrated with the controls and almost gave up. Very glad I pushed through though, as when it "clicks", damn this game is satisfying to play. It's hard to describe but each room sort of feels like its own little navigational puzzle in a way. It's all about timing, and once you get a feel for it you can zip around the environment so quickly it's incredible.

Level design is pretty wild as there's essentially no gravity, and the game often rotates the camera upon entering a new room so it's easy to get disorientated. Thankfully the map has a feature that allows you to rotate it to match the orientation of the room you're in, and there's a lot of variety in the map design so different areas are memorable. Combat is very challenging at first largely due to the way movement works- it doesn't really make sense for your character to be knocked back when harmed, so instead you hover in place. This feels very unusual, and unless you react very quickly getting hit once can lead to being completely drilled. There are difficulty spikes in weird places. Even in the late game when you've got a bunch of health upgrades you can't get complacent, if you haven't been learning the different enemy behaviours you will get slapped. My biggest complaint is that the ability upgrades sort of boil down to lock and key type affairs (one lets you jump further off specific platforms, another lets you rotate other types of platform, etc), which is generally a no-no in the genre, but when the base movement is so unique you don't tend to notice. Really cool game, but not necessarily easy to get into. Loved the music in this too, nothing that gets stuck in your head but it's interesting and fits the style of the game nicely. 9/10


----------


Alwa's Awakening (Switch)
Fantastic 2D puzzle platformer. The whole thing looks, sounds, and plays like a NES game- in fact there's a legit NES release coming up. That level of retro is going to divisive depending on your tastes, but I loved it. The soundtrack is top tier too. You find yourself exploring the world of Alwa, gradually opening up new areas of the map as you gain new abilities but moreso as you learn new tricks with the abilities you already have, and learn the "language" of the games design in terms of false walls and other secrets. Initially there's a strong Solomon's Key vibe as you're able to summon green blocks, which can be used to reach higher platforms, drop on enemies, activate pressure plates, and so on. You really only get three major abilities throughout the game, but they interact so organically (particularly the first two) that it feels like a much broader move set than it initially looks.

Combat is very simple, with enemies feeling more like obstacles than real threats, and there's no XP or anything so avoiding enemies is also fair game, but I think that all feeds into it feeling more like a puzzle game that happens to be a 2D platformer, rather than the other way around. Boss fights really drove this home- if you charge in and try to rush them down, the movement will feel inadequate and you'll probably get flogged. For each boss there is a strategy to work out, and once you have the execution isn't too difficult. One interesting thing I hadn't seen before is that as you collect the 99 magic orbs that are littered about the place, you're reducing each bosses health pool, so exploration is rewarded with quicker boss fights. There is diminishing returns after a point, and earlier on I didn't expect I'd be bothered to find all 99 orbs, but before I knew it I was over 80% completion and couldn't put it down until I hit 100%. Almost every challenge in this game is contained within a single screen (enemies respawn, naturally), and because it's so compartmentalised the challenges are really focused. Some rooms seem insurmountable, then after exploring the map a bit you realise there must be a way through. You figure it out, then armed with that knowledge you realise there are three other places you've been to before that you can now get past. It's really satisfying. 9/10


----------


Alwa's Legacy (Switch)
Direct sequel to Alwa's Awakening, this time around targeting more of a 16-bit look, though strangely the music is still more on the 8-bit side. You're playing as the same character and you're still in Alwa, but the map is for the most part entirely distinct from the original game, with a few throwbacks here and there. You start the game with none of your abilities but very quickly gain all three of the main ones from Awakening. 99 orbs are laying about again, but rather than weaken bosses, this time they're assignable points in a skill tree. These points can be reallocated for free at an NPC in the main town so you're free to experiment, and it's a really interesting approach that I haven't seen pulled off successfully in a metroidvania before. You might pile all of your points into your green block and unlock the ability to use it like a raft to cross a body of water, only to find you need more points in another ability to collect something or flip a switch on the other side. You can come back later when you have enough points to have both skills available at once, or you can try to find a way to cross the water more economically, freeing up some points to spend elsewhere. The latter will usually be more difficult but almost feels like a sequence break, and there are tons of places like that throughout the game.

The puzzles have evolved from the previous game, with switches often being specific colours now- your green block obviously activates green switches, your other two major abilities are blue and yellow respectively, plus your character is wearing purple so only you can activate purple switches. There are some abilities that seem useless in the early game that allow you to change the colour of certain things, which makes these colour-based puzzles more interesting. There are a few missteps in the design- one area takes everything people hated about the Water Temple in OoT and turns it up to 11, but for the most part it's great. Overall I don't think Legacy impressed me quite as much as Awakening, and the soundtrack's definitely weaker, but it's still a very good game that takes a few risks, most of which pay off. I've unlocked a pacifist mode (beat the game without attacking anything) and I'm pretty tempted to try it out, which isn't usually my bag. 8.5/10



Currently playing Aggelos, Dadish, and Immortals: Fenyx Rising. I'll get to Horace again one of these days.

[Twiztid Elf]

Yakuza Like a Dragon

WOW
I don't even know where to begin with all the good stuff.
I guess with the story and the characters.

Ichiban Kasuga, the smartarse on the cover, is just a phenomenal protagonist. So fun to share his story, which is an absolute emotional rollercoaster. The friends he makes along the way, particularly Nanba, Adachi and Eri. The rest of the party are cool too, Saeko, Joon-gi and Zhao. I kind of wish they spent more time on these last three, but the game is so long already.
Story characters Arakawa, Hoshino, Seong-hui, Young Master, Sawashiro, Mabuchi, Hamako, and Bleach Japan (Aoki) all stand out.
Cameos from Kirya and Goro are excellent aswell.
I've moaned about the lack of decent stories in modern video games a few times lately, well Yakuza Like a Dragon punched me in the face on that. The story is insanely good and an absolute mindfuck. Shocking twists and turns.

I really enjoyed the locations. I've never been to Yokohama (first location), but having been to Osaka (second location) and Kabukicho/Shinjuku (third location), really made it all the more special. Actually, they do an amazing job of making you feel like you're in Japan with approximation of real locations and all the product placement. Things like beef bowl cafes and the like.

Character development, options, jobs and specialization was a huge feature too. It was so fun building the team I wanted and kitting them out with the gear I want.

The only minor downer is the insane difficultly spikes and the grinding delaying the story. But the grinding was actually fun, and made the payoffs all the more sweeter.

Can't forget about the streak of craziness all the way through aswell.
That was one hell of a ride.
9/10

[Gamma]

The Mummy: Demastered (Switch)

Added this to my wishlist the day I got my Switch, finally got around to it. I've never seen the shitty Tom Cruise movie that it's loosely based on, but I have played WayForward games that were brilliant despite being based on shitty source material. You play as a faceless operative for some organisation tasked with taking down the bad mummy lady. The gameplay is Castlevania meets Turrican, with seven or so different weapons to discover and a bunch of ability upgrades that allow access to new areas. Moment to moment gameplay is pretty old school and unforgiving in places- a couple of times I struggled with some of the more vertical areas due to damage knockback sending me all the way back to the ground. Bosses weren't too difficult but had pretty massive health pools, so you really had to learn their patterns.

One thing I immediately didn't like was the idea behind the death mechanic. When you die, your agent becomes a zombie, and you assume control of a fresh one. That I'm OK with, but the zombie keeps all of your weapon and health upgrades. This is a metroidvania, so you could be 80% through, die, and find yourself with 99 health and the starting gun up against a zombie with a flamethrower, rocket launcher, 599 health plus whatever else is in that room that caused you to die in the first place. Indeed I've read stories online of players restarting the entire game (or just quitting) because they had six or seven OP zombies piled up in the same room. My solution? Don't die. The game definitely had challenging parts but I just played cautiously, and backtracked with each new ability to try and squeeze another health or ammo upgrade out of the environment. So hey, maybe the whole zombie thing isn't too bad, technically I can't comment on it.

Loved the sprite work and animation, the bosses in particular look awesome but even the basic enemies look great. The rats in the sewers are pretty much your generic 2D platformer enemy that follows surfaces, but when you change screens and suddenly there are half a dozen of them slinking around it almost makes your skin crawl. I also got very strong Metal Slug vibes from the helicopter you use as a fast-travel option when topside. What really sells the overall package for me though is without a doubt the soundtrack.

Killer. The artist (monomer) has a couple of earlier albums that I'm listening to at the moment. All said and done, while this doesn't really bring anything new to the table it looks and sounds great, has tight controls, and reenforced my belief that everything WayForward touches turns to gold. 8.5/10

[Peppermint Lounge]

Far Cry 6.

A mammoth game and not always for the better. Story is good and gameplay the usual polished affair. IMO many of the updated mechanics a step back though. For example you're encouraged to match ammo type to specific enemies eg: armoured, soft damage, etc. The thing is you can't change ammo on the fly so you're constantly swapping actual weapons out via menus. Yes, you can't even do it via a quick weapon wheel style system. Basically you have every weapon in your arsenal available to swap out any time. It's cumbersome and breaks your flow far too often. Previous Far Crys do weapon and ammo management better. Personally I wouldn't bother with all the swapping and copped using more rounds of less compatible ammo to kill enemies instead. Amigos (animal companions) are not as well done as FC5 and New Dawn either. Their AI and durability pretty inconsistent across the board. Strange also is you get only two difficulty options at the start of the game. Story mode and Action mode. No hard mode. Annoying.

They did an amazing job with the open world. It blends dense tropical with urban settings. Some of the urban cityscapes look average on first look but once you're in a city and exploring it's impressive to see how much detail they've crammed in. The countryside is consistently impressive. There are set-piece views and interesting things to look at at every turn. Visuals are impressive mostly but it's still a game released on previous gen platforms and it often shows.

Dani is an excellent protagonista. All of her lines are delivered well. The cuban-inspired Spanish is laid on pretty thick at times. I wasn't enamoured with any of the side characters though. Maybe Bembe who plays a nasty pinga. He was amusing. The rest are rather boring and too stereotypical. Far Cry 3 still way out in front when it comes to character roster. Giancarlo is amazing as is Anthony Gonzalez who plays Diego, Anton's son.

All up a solid triple A game but I found some of the the updated meachanics frustrating and the repetition & filler activities struggled to keep my attention at times, and that's coming from someone who hasn't yet grown out of the series. I was loving replaying FC5 in the lead up to this and wasn't tiring of the forumula. This one though, I was actually exiting early rather than travel to the next anti aircraft gun so I could free up air vehicle use in the area. It ramped up really well toward the end and had me keen to log back in again. Credit to how it transitions from end of story to the end game. That's done very well and exceeds previous entries in the series. Still a map full of icons to visit and I bought the season pass on the back of previous FC game antagonists reprising their roles to feature in three separate stories.

8/10

[unfnknblvbl]

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

It's good to see EA can still make single player games. There's a lot of potential nuance to the combat system, but unfortunately it rapidly devolves into button mashing during boss fights, especially the last one. Still an alright and engaging story.

8/10

[Twiztid Elf]

Forza Horizon 5
That's a Forza Horizon game alright.
The same game I've played four times already, with a lot more polish, a cool new location and prettier graphics.
And the same as with the earlier games, turning off all the dudebro crap (as much as possible), the music and the satnav all make it a much better experience.
I finished the Adventure mode and got inducted into the Hall of Fame.
QTE racing game, just follow all the onscreen prompts to win. But don't worry there is no lose condition anyway, so you're just going through the motions on this fun roller coaster. Wheeeee!
Its iterative, soulless, hollow and has no depth. Just completion checklists.
I did ten wheelspins last night and got a pair of gloves, a coat, a new emote and the rest ingame credit. YAY!
The graphics, as good as they are at times, and they are very, very good, they are also inconsistent. The textures on the buildings in the main city are very plain.

I won't keep moaning, as the reality is that this is an extremely fun arcade / sim-cade racing game that delivers superbly on what it intends to do. I have had a stack of fun with this. Whizzing along at high speed, doing jumps, skimming and bouncing across the landscape, fiddling around with the cars, and applying the community itasha wraps.
I particularly enjoyed the really long races at the end of some of the adventure chapters.
I'm compelled to close it out completing the map and getting that last garage find as I always do, but I just feel like people are hyping this more than it deserves.
8/10

[Mavy]

Guardians of the Galaxy PC.

Really enjoyed this. Great story, great characters, close enough to the movie versions to not be jarring. Insane graphics, perfect showpiece for my new 3070.

Combat was probably it's weakest part as it sometimes feels like you're not involved as most of what you're doing is issuing commands. It can be fun but it's sorta like a turn based RPG while you're also running around shooting things at the same time.

Very buggy too. A number of times things didn't trigger or I got stuck on a rock. Luckily loading the last checkpoint was an easy fix without losing any progress thanks to the very frequent auto saving.

Decent length too 19hrs. Looked like it might have had different paths based on your choices but not sure if they would have actually changed the game or made it more difficult. It seemed like I had made all the right choices as there was always a good outcome or perk later in the game.

Hopefully there'll be a sequel with an improved combat system. I'll be buying it.

[Twiztid Elf]

Mini Metro (PC)
Wow, such a chill, mellow, minimalistic, relaxing game.
Really easy to just bang out a level here or there in 10 minutes.
8/10

[F for Fake]

Sounded good so I grabbed it on GoG. Enjoying it.
Grabbed it coz of all the "relaxing" comments, but I'm doing anything but
Would like the option to "complete" a level, so I'm just aiming for 1000+ trips and saying that's enough to move on.

[Twiztid Elf]

Not sure if its the full version or just the intro part, but it's playable here.
https://www.coolmathgames.com/0-mini-metro-london

[Deef]

The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope

Since Little Hope reminded us of Detroit, that's actually what we did. With about a quarter of Little Hope left before completion, we instead ejected it, and played the entirety of Detroit again over the following week and thoroughly enjoyed it, despite having already completed the game twice. Sounds special but that's normal for Detroit; it has that many different pathways and even now, with 3 completely different play throughs, we still have many levels less than 50% explored, and one level we still haven't even figured out how to begin.

Little Hope is so bad. I'm torn between wanting to rant about how bad, and just not wanting to give it any more time. Bah, here we go.

It's one of those story games where you make decisions and react to quick time events as you try to achieve the most positive ending... and keep everyone alive.

So it's like Detroit: Become Human, but horrible. Don't consider this game when Detroit exists. Get Detroit. Think of any aspect of design for a game of this genre, and know that Little Hope does it terribly, and Detroit does it excellently.

Story meaning. Story flow. Jump scares. Camera transitions, dialog transitions, staging transitions. Impact of choices. Quick time event execution. Simple character control. The utterly pointless, lip-servicey, decision-tracking interface. The amount of times it recycles the same monsters. Literally fight the same tongue-zombie-thing 4 times in one playthrough. The complete randomness of when attacks happen; completely meaningless and contrived and looks cheap, even to the point of "Here are 2 different monsters on screen at once; choose one." And then 3 minutes later you encounter one or both again and it's just "ffs ok already".

Especially after we replayed the last chunk to get things "right", we saw just how cheap it really got. The last quarter of the game is just constant garbage being thrown at you, while (we realised) your choices are frequently completely meaningless, being ignored literally right in that moment's dialog. "Mary's the victim here, spare her"... turns into "You're right, we must stop Mary at all costs". And it made no difference either way.

Then the whole story is a big pointless reveal; like, a dumb one. Nothing mattered. And even with everyone alive at the end the game just up and killed one of the characters anyway, zero choice or control. What's irritating is that I imagine there is a chain of events that can save her, but whatever it is, it has nothing to do with anything in that moment. It was a completely random, connected-to-nothing death that you aren't given any say over. You just watch. And it's the same god damn tongue zombie attack you have to watch for the umpteenth time, but this time you're confused because you aren't even being given a say. Instead you're just thinking "What's happening and wtf does this have to do with anything here".

Anyway, sorry, I can't be bothered making any of that more coherent. It's just so bad, and so cheap in so many ways. The jump scares are outright confusing because we legitimately couldn't tell if they were this bad on purpose, or if the devs were actually trying and this is what they came up with. I think it's the latter.


Detroit: Become Human is the same genre, 20 times better in every way. Awesome production, awesome characters, really cool music, sick, thick tension, especially towards the end (and especially with Kara), and so many actual real consequences and branches that the game has no need at all to fake it and is quite happy to drown you in all the un-revealed paths you've missed at each chapter's end. And the whole thing is bright and futuristic, instead of being yet another case of everything being dark with crappy torches and crappier cameras. Heck you even scrub through holographic reconstructions of a scene, then pause at points and move around that reconstruction's 3D space to find more clues that didn't exist in the real space you're walking around in. Blah blah blah, Detroit Detroit Detroit.

After that week we begrudgingly pushed Little Hope back into the PS4 and dragged our way to its ending with 2 different approaches, just to give it a chance. Nope, it's just really bad. Replays only make it (much) worse.

5/10

[Peppermint Lounge]

Halo 2 Anniversary

This is one of the best remasters I've seen. Cinematics are outstanding and as per CE Anniversary the direction taken with upgraded visuals fits perfectly and looks great. Game also is glorious to behold and play at 120fps.

I was disappointed with H2 at launch and while I was able to enjoy it a lot more during this playthrough it remains a disappointing sequel vs Combat Evolved. I just don't like what Bungie did with the Covenant, Brutes and Prophets - presenting them as religious zealots who speak ham-fisted Shakespearean English. Entirely subjective of course. There are space opera games with English speaking aliens I've liked but my favourite characters there tend to be the more Mass Effect types such as Thane, Mordin, etc.

Finally Halo 2 is fucking hard. I play Heroic and made it through Reach and CE fine. Halo 2 gave me a hard time from Gravemind on. Bungie say Heroic is the way Halo is meant to be played but man Chief is made of paper yet moves like a tank with no evasive option eg: sprint so I spend firefights switching in and out of cover like I'm a rogue glass-cannon type without the DPS. And the Scarab escort during 'The Great Journey'. Calm blue ocean, calm blue ocean. I tip my hat to the self-harmers who beat this game on Legendary.

The remaster did a good job padding out the infamous ending. I've enjoyed finally running up Halo 3 for the first time to experience an immediate continuation of the story.

10/10 remaster.
7/10 game.

[t0mby]

Halo Infinite - Series X

Soooo, really didn't know what the story was about as I hadn't played any of the releases after Reach. Loved the start, almost felt like a nod to Halo CEs opening level but dialed up to ten. Gameplay was fantastic, although felt overpowered in some of the open world stuff. The addition of the grappling hook was very welcome as I couldn't imagine 7 games inna row feeling like you're jumping through treacle. Sound was also exceptional, best use of Atmos in a game yet, rockets and shrapnel flying over head, also being able to tell where some enemies were hiding above with pinpoint precision. Have to mention the open world environment ls too, not as massive as some games but once a few ooennup they are all linked in some way.

My only gripes with the game would be, they don't warn you
before leaving the open world for the last time, there was quite a few main missions back to back as you get close to the end, this will piss a few people off that haven't upgraded all their tools because you really do need them on Heroic difficulty. Also after one level you get picked up by the Pelican and taken to the next level yet you start the next level with what you finished the previous level. I had 3 bullets in my Battle Rifle and nothing else so that was a difficult start, should've had some ammo on the Pelican surely. Also, having no co-op on release day is unforgivable, reminded me of Halo 2, co-op was planned and even in the menu but it never launched with it. Couple of bugs slipped through, mainly upgrading your equipment, managed to have them upgraded way to quick, now have over 12 Spartan Cores in my inventory, other was some bad clipping of AI stuck in walls with only an elbow exposed, thankfully that only happened a couple of times but if it's at a place where you need to kill everything then a restart would be in order.

Aside from that, awesome game, glad I played this.

9 hilarious propaganda towers out of 10

[Peppermint Lounge]

Halo 3

Loved it. On par with Combat Evolved for scale and already great Halo gameplay hugely improved by all the new vehicles. Scarab fights are dated now but were fun to play for the first time. An amazing soundtrack that meets/exceeds the insanely high mark already set by Halo. Much better story-telling than 2 and a great ending. The game had some decent visual moments eg: the opening of Floodgate but overall visuals are underwhelming by 2007 standards and the character models & animation are terrible. Character models get a mention given the attention players had to give them during the heavy emotion scenes. I finished the game on Heroic which provided for some stiff challenge moments and enjoyable super-soldier carnage.

I've finally played Halo 3. Great game. 9/10.

[Peppermint Lounge]

Epistory Typing Chronicles

Gorgeous action game where obstacles are cleared and enemies fought by typing words that appear above them. If you like typing it's a satisfying way to dispatch foes. The game is presented top down with paper origami visuals. The art is amazing with the world literally unfolding as you progress. The game has a great soundtrack and talented female narrator who drops regular quips of emotion and vague story to match the area you're in. 'Boss batles' are represented in the game by nests. Once you walk onto a nest you get waves of enemies comprising short words, longer words and words so long you never knew they existed. As you progress you acquire points you can put towards various power ups. Optional chests throughout the map provide power up points also. After a series of beautifully contrasting zones you're treated to a touching ending.

9/10.

[unfnknblvbl]

Scarab fights are dated now but were fun to play for the first time.

I remember them being absolutely amazing and much more fun in co-op