Tokyo Mirage Sessions is done! Pretty good game. It's pretty much a Persona tribute to Fire Emblem and the entire world of Japanese pop culture. Not sure any other game has left me saying, "what the fuck?" more than this one has. Despite it's Japanese eccentricities it was a solid jRPG. It does get a few extra points on the battle system though, which gets absolutely batshit insane at times. Anyway, good good game, but after 50+ hours I'm ready to move onto something new.
Beat F.E.A.R - 9/10
I love me some FEAR so replaying this was a non-issue for me. Ended up playing it on Extreme, not that hard, but I lean n peak with slow mo like a beast. I will go to my god damn grave saying that the level design deserves a shit load more respect than it gets. I agree with anyone that aesthetically it gets really dull, and there are a lot of times I did get turned around because of how samey shit can look. But the brilliant AI that everyone loves, doesn't work if it didn't have these levels to work with. A lot of what they do is a product of the arenas they are in, and little shit like them going prone to get under a garage door, to how you'll work around a car to flank the enemy (because in every other fps these days, that works pretty easily), these mother fuckers actually move, the swat dive through windows, they fall on their butt when you shoot them in the leg and can be tripped up, you can stagger enemies.
FEAR takes a pretty short enemy pool and makes the moment to moment gameplay a genuine blast, because the corridor shooting has so many interesting spaces to mix up the combat. And the shooting is fucking rad, pistols and shotguns are nice and loud. The rifles have good kick back on them, not necessarily Arma level of recoil, but just enough to make games punchy, the blood spatter, the concrete being ripped apart, the office cubicle just being shredded, the gibs, the way enemies sell hits, the fact that hitting them in specific spots actually matters. It's all so fucking good.
And the guns? The lightning rifle shit is amazing it turns people into skeletons, The nail gun is the bees knees. That grenade launcher turns people into dust. It's fucking rad.
I also still genuinely like the aesthetic, it's every fucking long hair little girl horror cliche ever, but to Monoliths credits they use their jump scares appropriately, and when they ramp up it's genuinely earned. It gives the game an aesthetic and atmosphere that is still fundamentally unique in the FPS space, even if System Shock, Bioshock, and the like are obviously a thing. The watchers I actually find fun to fight with how they move, the ghost things? Eh less so. I actually think the final stretch of gameplay isn't nearly as fun to play. Especially that part where you have to mess with the power cycle to open up a vault.
But even then the level design is still really good, the interconnected nature of it all makes a lot of the backtracking tolerable, and again it's what makes the action so fucking satisfying.
Simply put it's one of the best single player shooters by a good margin, because the moment to moment action even if it were paced worst would still be the shit. The core action is simply that good.
Also I turned head bob off, because nah. Some of the visuals are funny as fuck, the back ground city is hilariously shitty lol but endearing for its early 2005 nature. Also playing the game on modern resolutiosn and such, I don't if it's a frame pacing thing, but some times the moving side to side or swinging the mouse can be jerky, like there is no smoothing or whatever. But whatevers, game is dope.
The story is dumb, I stopped caring mad long ago.
Updated with Resident Evil 5! 
Updated with The Swindle.
This was one of a bunch of downloadable games I bought on WiiU I think when they were discounted. I had tried it many months ago soon after I'd bought it and I didn't think anything of it. And to be quite honest I don't know what it was that prompted me to make this the first game I tried after a seven month gaming hiatus. No idea.
But I found it very captivating and it somehow drew me in. The premise of the game is that you play a thief (who gets replayed by a thief who looks differently but plays identically every time he/she gets killed) and you do heists on properties in order to accumulate funds which you can use on upgrades. This allows you to move on to more dangerous heists which potentially offer higher rewards and allow you to do more and further upgrades until eventually you are ready to take on the titular "swindle" ... which is the attempt to steal an advanced AI machine (called the Devil's Basilisk) from police HQ which, when unleashed, will put an end to yours and every other thief's career.
You have a 100 day limit from when you start the game to when the Devil's Basilisk launches which means you have to complete the swindle within that frame or start again. Each heist you do, whether successful or not counts as one day. If you die, you lose whatever cash your thief had on them at the time and you start with a new thief on a new day. You also lose your bonus multiplier when your thief dies, which makes a huge difference to your monitary rewards. What you don't lose when you die are your upgrades. Once you unlock an upgrade it's forever.
The game basically throws you in at the deep end and lets you figure it all out on your own. Precious little explaining, no handholding at all. It's also very unforgiving. Most enemies kill you instantly with one touch. Big drops kill you, explosions kill you and all other kinds of hazards. Mercifully there is no time limit on any of your heists. There isn't even a bonus for trying to do things quickly. The game encourages you to be patient and methodical. It's the only way. As someone who loaths speed rounds and time limits I enjoyed this.
It looks fantastic. I loved the cel-shaded steam-punk aesthetic. All the robots and gizmos look so funny and full of character as do all your thieves. Each of the six different areas/levels has its own look and character according to its theme. There are tons and tons of different security robots and all other manner of machines trying to detect you and kill you. All of them wonderfully drawn and very funny.
Unfortunately the game's controls leave much to be desired. A game this tight and difficult needed to have ultra responsive controls you can depend on. You get no such thing. I died numerous times because my character simply didn't jump when I pressed the button. There is incredible slowdown, especially during heists on levels 4. 5 and 6. When things get busy the game slows down to a crawl and at times you are lucky if you get a couple of frames per second. Also the game crashed more than a handful of times. It simply just froze and made a buzzing sound and I had to manually restart the console. Also all the levels are algorithm generated and sometimes this results in silly or impossible situations and cheap deaths. Especially early on when you might not even have the bomb upgrade and the level effectively locks you out of rooms which ideally you should be able to get into.
I didn't think I would be able to finish the game quite honestly but I did it on my second attempt (the first was more of a learning experience as I knew I couldn't complete it but I played on till the end of the 100 day limit anyway just to get better at it and be more well equipped for my second attempt) and with about 20 days to spare.
It's a game that has lots of nice ideas but I wish they had taken the time to iron out the bugs to make for a smoother experience. As it is, I'd only recommend it to the most patient and stoical among us.
___
Listen to Wu-Tang and watch Kung-Fu
Resident Evil 4 the Xbone version is done!
Still an amazing game. When you're talking about one of the best games ever made, they always tend to feel timeless no matter when you play them. It took me awhile to get used to RE4's controls again as they feel surprisingly different from RE5 & 6, but once I did as always the game is just magic. Can you believe this is almost 12 fucking years old? Insane.
edgecrusher said:Resident Evil 4 the Xbone version is done!
Still an amazing game. When you're talking about one of the best games ever made, they always tend to feel timeless no matter when you play them. It took me awhile to get used to RE4's controls again as they feel surprisingly different from RE5 & 6, but once I did as always the game is just magic. Can you believe this is almost 12 fucking years old? Insane.
What I personally feel more difficult to believe is that I'm 12 years older than when I first played it. 
Just finished Gears of War 4 and on Insane to boot. It was quite tough with some really frustrating spots here and there but I persevered. The game looks fantastic and mechanically it's the best in the series both online and off. The story was ok but not great and was really the only thing holding it back any. The new Horde mode is terrific and the class system really raises it to another level. All in all an excellent game. 8.5 out of 10.
Finally finished off Batman: Arkham Knight.
Great game but it didn't impress me as much as the other games. The big addition seemed to be the vehicle stuff but honestly that's my least favorite areas of the entire game. I found driving around to be clumsy and the vehicle combat to be annoying. When you're on foot the game feels very much like Arkham City and more enjoyable. Arkham Asylum is still my favorite as that one focused on the great adventure gameplay over any kind of open world gimmicks.
I beat some games in awhile
62: Silent Hill 2 - One of gaming's like 5 great achievements in terms of story telling, the atmosphere, it's genuinely scary in a way that its contemporaries like say Resident Evil never were, and ah that ending, that's how you close a fucking game. The gameplay has some note worthy short comings, and some of the puzzles run the risk of being point and click adventure tier of obtuse for no reason, but since they actually require thought, I'll take them over what I got from Resident Evil's puzzles. Game is a classic. 9/10
63: Titanfall 2 - The core combat is a bit meh since it's CoD with dope movement mechanics, but said movement mechanics allow for some exciting level design, encounters ,and some dope set pieces. With some of the best levels having really clever platforming mechanics, with Cause and Effect being an absolute highlight. BT was surprisngly cool for being a pretty obvious cliche, and they even had a dope smart pistol segment. It's fun. I don't like a lot of the changes to mp though. They ruined pilots v Titan combat, they shouldn't have made the Titans heroes, and the map design is dreadful at times. 7/10
64: 1979: Revolution Black Friday - I get that it's an interesting setting, time period, and ethnicity to depict in a video game. But with so light mechanics the presentation and story has to carry the day, and it's so dull to look at visually. It's jarring, what little mechanics they have are silly and unsatisfying, and the ending left me empty. The game more or less, is pretty poor. Not Destiny bad, but there are actual diseases that aren't Destiny bad. 4/10
65: Dishonored - I enjoyed my replay of the game. It's still a very quick and fluid game, you get a lot of fun tools to attack situations as you see fit, and the level design is open ended nicely. I wish the stealth was a lot better, as the pacificist playthrough is unsatisfying, but the overall gameplay is so good I can get over one type of play method not being good. Plus the game still is a thinking man's game even when you're going around killing people, as you can get really creative with how you want to kill people.
66: Halo Combat Evolved - There is a myth, that the lone blemish on this games run is how bad The Library is. The game actually falls apart and begins a gradual decent into mediocrity and then into super shit town during Assault on the Control Room. These levels are far too repetitive, far too overused, for a combat system that is solid all around, but rarely great enough to carry an entire game like that. AOTCR has this one room repeat 9 fucking times, and then guilty spark has you back track out of the level fighting the flood, who suck. The Library sucks. And then Two Betrayels is AOTCR backwards, Keyes is Truth and Rec backwards, and the Maw is Pillar of Autumn but shitty, but also with a fun escape sequence. Were it not for some genuinely classic multiplayer, Halo's been repping most fraudest game of all time. 7/10 (but not for the campaign, that shit ilike a 4)
67: Oxenfree - cool story mechanic with how the dialogue works, I like me some alex, I would have liked a little bit more to it as a game, but the story was fine, and the systems used to tell the story were different from the usual pick a dialogue games. 6/10
68; Pony Island - fucking meh. 5/10
69 : Chrono Trigger - It's a jrpg that doesn't blow in spite of its jrpgness. 8/10
70: Battlefield 1 - Campaign = ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. Thank god for some bitchin multiplayer though. 7/10
Another year, another 40 games beaten.
Metro Last Light is done.
edgecrusher said:Another year, another 40 games beaten.
Metro Last Light is done.
Ranger mode?
Gagan said:Ranger mode?
Is that hard mode? No, I just played it on normal survival. That's how I play most games these days.
edgecrusher said:Is that hard mode? No, I just played it on normal survival. That's how I play most games these days.
Sort of, but you can play it normal as well.
It makes it so every enemy (and yourself) die in one shot, which adds a lot to the stealth/atmosphere of that game. You can naturally play it on the highest difficulty n stuff, but the neato thing is you can play that type of way on more moderate difficulties as well. For Last Light that mode was preorder dlc, which is bullshit though.
Xbone version of Halo ODST is done. That completes all the campaign shit in the Master Cheif Collection.
Well I just finished Final Fantasy XV and while it's kind of low on my favourite Final Fantasy games it is a good game in general. The story is a bit of a mess with quite a few things which seem to have been left out, presumably for the movie. Many of the characters lack proper exposition to build motivation and such with some characters just kind of dropping out of sight. Gameplay can be enjoyable at times but can also be frustrating with a sometimes awkward camera and a magic system that makes its uses not as desirable as it should be because you have to watch out for your AI companions from also taking damage from it. Summons look awesome but they are too seldom ever able to be used. Game looks great albeit a bit blurry on the Xbox One however there is a patch coming to fix that. It can be enjoyable to just wander around but can be a bit confusing to plot specific paths to particular places ie. map knowledge can take awhile to come to grips with. There is a lot to do in the game both during the main story and after so this game will give you plenty to do.
Not one of my favourite Final Fantasies but an overall enjoyable and good game regardless. 8 out of 10
Dead Rising 3 is done.
Really fun game outside of maybe the endless zombie hordes towards the end that prevent you from going down the street in a vehicle.
Just beat Yoshi's Wooly World yesterday.
It's a good game, but it just didn't click with me. I dragged myself through the second half of the game for closure. There are plenty cool little touches in the game, both visually and in terms of level design. the last dozen levels or so are pretty challenging as well and really start to shake things up. I wish I had enjoyed this more, the game deserved better from me.
Finished Far Cry Primal.
Its a solid game but it definitely lacks the big moments and excitement of the other games in the series. This one is probably tied with Far Cry 2 in the series overall rankings. What was cool though is just that its different. It's not really a FPS at all as obviously there's no guns in the game, yet it still feels like Far Cry. I don't know that I'd like another game in this setting, but as a one off this is really cool and worth checking out.