Be Excellent To Each Other

I'm not too fussed about challenging myself but I like keeping track of what I've played and can talk about it, if anyone is interested. Probably not, so fuck ya. Anyway, post your game completions in here, ya fannies. I'll start:

1) Metal Gear Solid V (PS4).

It's bleeding brilliant. I can't believe how good it is for a Kojima game. I have fond memories of Snake Eater but that was more in spite of Kojima's terrible story writing and cut-scene heavy hands spanking you each time you wanted to just play the damn thing. The weirdest thing, for me, is that MGSV is so much fun to play. It's an excellent game and I daresay that if someone could wrestle Kojima's hands off a story and just let him direct the gamey parts of the game then something amazing could come out of his fingertips.

Stealth has never been so much fun, so creative, and have so many intricate systems all playing out in your face. It's astonishing that it never falls apart. Just really solid stuff. I feel as though I want to write about all the cool things but I'll leave that to whoever goes and plays it (and you should).

I've been allowing myself to read all about MGSV now I've finished it (just in case I've missed something) and I'd like to say "Hey, go fuck yourselves, you knobs" to all those people who ruined the story for themselves by reading those tedious websites that were analysing every trailer and what not before it was out. I didn't. I didn't even know the Big Twist was even a thing. But when it happened? Absolutely fabulous stuff. It really made the whole experience that bit better. Of course, the explanation was pure Kojima but I didn't care. I was just whooping at the screen. I was really scratching my head why I was being made to play the first mission all over again, but when it happened I felt as though I needed to write a letter of apology.

2. Resident Evil: Revelations 2: Episode 1 (PC).

Remember Resident Evil: Revelations? That was the worse trashy shit that I've ever played; real low grade disposable rubbish. Anyway I got this in a bundle (I think) and it starts off badly with a typically crap FMV and voice acting from 15 year old girls, apparently. Then it gets going and, erm, I may be eating my hat. For each second that passes I'm experiencing 60 frames, everything looks top notch , some nice dust particle effects, and some FMAA. Ok, I don't know what the last one was but it looked like an altogether better experience than I ever had on the WiiU. Barry Burton is back and he says "Who is the master of unlocking now?" Hang on, does someone at Capcom have a sense of humour? It even plays nicely too with a prison that is the main setting of this episode which is both large and has some good backtracking. The baddies aren't scary any more but they didn't 'arf give me a run for my money all of a sudden. Shame that huge guys with metal helmets that cover their entire face don't get their hats blown off or have permanent protection from headshots. Y'see it's still Resi on the cheap and nowhere near the quality of the numbered entries but it's much better than the other crap we get.

Anyway, surprisingly better than ok. If the other episodes go cheap I might just get the rest of this. I'll remove this entry too until I've finished it but since, at present, I ain't going back to it then it's finished for me.

1. Magicka 2 (PC)

It's Magicka. But with fewer arse mines.

2. Broforce (PC)

Excellent fun single player. Even betterer with a friend (and probably bettererer with more). Except for the timecop level. That can piss off.

1. The Swapper (PC)

A Portal style puzzler, but in a metroidvania environment. Each puzzle consists of having to reach a particular location which may be locked away behind doors activated by pressure plates or otherwise hard to reach. They are solved by making clones of oneself and swapping between them through line of sight. What makes it tricky is that all clones move and jump in concert. Some areas a lit up in a blue light, and in those you cannot place a clone. Other areas are lit up by red light, which blocks line of sight for the purpose of swapping. The later puzzles also feature gravity reversal on a per-clone basis to mix things up a bit.

It is an absolutely lovely game with a dark sci fi story and a brooding and unique graphical style. The movement is a bit too floaty, which can cause frustration as you fall off platforms once in a while, but nothing too bad. The last couple of puzzles are maddening, but ultimately doable.

1. The Swapper (PC)
2. Her Story (PC)

You are sat in front of an old police terminal searching through video clips, indexed by words contained in the dialogue, to try to find the one clip that reveals what happened in a particular murder case. The trick is, you will only see the first five results of your search (although you are told the actual number of matches), so the game can hide the more revealing clips by requiring more specific searches.

I was just completely absorbed in this until I had the solution, and then until I had seen all of the clips - which becomes possible with the help of a couple of "cheats" that are revealed at the end of the credits. The acting and writing is top notch.

Great idea, brilliantly executed.

1. The Swapper (PC)
2. Her Story (PC)
3. Metro 2033 Redux (PC)

I effectively finished this before Christmas, because as I played it today it turned out there was only one chapter left and it was largely expositional.

I love me an FPS, and this one looks and sounds amazing, but for some reason it never really gripped me completely. There is just something slightly odd and clumsy about it, but I can't put my finger on exactly what it is.

1) Murdered: Soul Suspect

3) Battlefield: Hotline (PS4)

Surprisingly enjoyable campaign that is stealth-lite.

The funny thing about the campaign is that the first mission is a CoD:MW clone but set in some urban area and the main characters are po-po and, y'know what, I was entirely happy with that. More than happy in fact, as I was sat there playing out the first mission I was thinking if CoD stopped the ludicrous bombast of army life and did a police game then this would be exactly what we'd get and it would be an instant classic. I suppose you might as well watch the first mission on youtube or something since once you've watched that you've seen the best the game has to offer. The graphics are absolutely top-notch too on this first level with some great ancillary bits with people in the street and just doing stuff that's really well done, the streets look great at night and all sorts of lovely stuff happens.

Then it gets a little crapper as you are lured into a web of stealth-lite gameplay. It is still quite a linear experience but you can organise your way through rooms and buildings nabbing bad guys and slapping the cuffs on them and then this turns out to be actually what the game is about for the next 5-6 hours. It is fundamentally less-good than the opening mission and the quality of the graphics and animations are fewer-good than that first mission too.

There ain't much "wrong" with a stealth replacing the typical shoot outs but it's just the repeating animations that wear you down. They aren't particularly lengthy but they are repetitive and I'm not exactly sure what the answer to this would be. You grab them, push them to the floor and slap on the cuffs and move on while a canned voice says "I ain't doing no wrong pig" or something for the fiftieth time. You could just go blazing but the game wants you to die quickly if you do that so you do the handcuff dance again and again and again as you move through level after level, handcuff dance after handcuff dance. You can shoot people in the face of course but that will trigger everyone in the level. You can tazer some peeps too which is not a bad substitute I guess; certainly much more preferable to the handcuff dance.

Oh, and the quality because 9/10 when you do the handcuff dance the baddies will be clipping through some scenery which looks really bad. Face inside a desk, through a lamp, a car tyre and, most hilariously, during the skyscraper mission I handcuffed some guy as his legs suddenly shot through the skyscraper window into mid-air which looked really rough. Such a shame as I'm sure with some tweaking they could have managed to start the animation for the dance away from scenery so this wouldn't happen, but I ain't a coder so I don't know shit really.

Oh, and the main character's name is Menendez. Oh, and the police chief is voiced by the police chief in The Shield. If you're a The Shield fan you'll enjoy his voice throughout this. And the oriental detective partner is hot in a this-is-a-computer-game-&-you've-been-single-too-long-kinda-way. The story ain't that bad either. Really silly, daft as fuck but, hey, at least it entertained me.

With Battlefront: Star Plops doing away with the campaign and Battlefield: Hotline putting more effort than the previous years into theirs, I know which game I would prefer playing. It's a shame really that people have been moaning about the cops and robbers multiplayer because the campaign is a jolly little slice of honest to goodness stupid shit. 5/10, sure, but it's better than not having a campaign at all isn't it?

4) Black Mesa. (PC)

Played it, loved it. I could not believe how long this game was. Seriously long, old school long, Half-Life 2 long. And I couldn't remember shit. I kept thinking it would surely end and once the army comes in it will finish shortly after, but no, apparently I was going to fight a 3 headed beast, launch a missile, ride a tramway cart thing and, best of all, climb the side of a fucking mountain. The graphics on the side of that mountain are really, really good too. I know this is an update done on a shoestring (or at least it was for a long time by a bunch of volunteers) but this is impressive work when you do as I've done and watch the old footage of the game. The voice acting is brilliant and I reckon the lines were redone for this; top work. I did get a little tired of the industrial zones near the end - in terms of the aesthetics alone as teleporters are introduced and what not - but when I got to the end and I saw the big fuck off machine waiting to teleport me to another world it was actually a decent pay off. Spotting the occurrences of the grey suit guy was fun too and the little bits of bantz between soldiers and on the radios and what not.

The only negatives for me were the army peeps and the big monsters that use those homing bullets which were both very unpleasant to fight against. I was using the steam controller and I don't think I quite got the sweet spot for decent accuracy so I was taking much longer to home in on them while the baddies would instantly and constantly fire away killing you in seconds. I reckon it needs sorting out because frankly there are some areas (Rocket Launch in particular) where they are no fun and in such numbers that I can see people turning it off for good right there and then.

Notwithstanding that, it's good, it's Half Life 1, Head Crabs will ruin your day, you will learn to save every 5 steps and after every decent encounter and whilst it ain't got Xen, who the fuck wants Xen?

Actually I do, because I've finished playing it now and it was so good that I want to see how it ends. It's a classic with a shiny new suit. Loved it. Now to see what eye sore Opposing Force is going to inflict on me...

1. Fallout 4

I want to try and get some gaming in this year, so thought I'd give this a go.

1. Spotlight:Room Escape (phone)

Love this thread.



I kept thinking The Swapper was so similar in themes to the Talos Principle, and so it made sense when I found out it was written by the same guy. Loved this game so much.

Her Story was also fantastic. Best co-op game of 2015 for me to - bizarrely.

1. Tomb Radier - PS4 - Got a load of games over xmas, but got addicted to this £8 PSN sale game. Just a very enjoyable single player experience (without busywork being shoved down my throat).

5) Rayman Fiesta Run (iOS)

I've been working on this for a good 6 months off and on. I remember playing the original the same time as another chap I used to work with and it was pretty good fun trying to beat him as he had a good lead on me, and those later levels were hard as nails to remember. Anyway, when there's no incentive to play it other than "well, fuck, I've started now" it rapidly loses it appeal to sustained play time hence the 6 month completion time. Plus when you thrust your fucking pay-real-money-items in my face before EVERY SINGLE RUN starts then it takes some time to find all the developers and murder their faces in cold blood before you decide to actually continue playing the game.

Anyway, it's the same as before, which means it's good but samey. There's no new tricks in this and I swear some of the music is the same, so that fucked me off after a while, but when the music is as good as this you kinda don't mind. The original was great running-to-the-right stuff without that stupid trend, which this has, of trying to get you to pay for items that might help your run. It's all rather pointless shit anyway. The whole nature of the running-to-the-right game is that you eventually remember where everything is and do a perfect run. If you cheat with items then what's the fucking point? There's no ending screen or nothing so you don't even get the satisfaction of completing anything really. You've cheated. You're a big cheater. Well done. Now what? Oh, pay more money to not do the next level too? Good stuff dickhead.

Anyhoo it was free, so I can't complain too much I guess. I'd rather it wasn't though so I didn't have to suffer those fucking item screens. If pay a couple of quid just to remove that shit, but it's a Ubisoft title and they're all about the scam, init. Id recommend you give it a punt. Might occupy your time for an hour or so before you bin it off like so many iOS games.

I didn't pay a penny and I'd got all the 88 crowns and finished the golden skull things. I did feel some satisfaction especially after 15 minutes on the last level like a chump but the lack of an ending screen just sort of tainted the end result for me. So here's what you get when you finish the screen, for everyone to enjoy and see...

1. Fallout 4
2. The Room 3: awesome stuff from Fireproof as always. Quite a bit longer than the previous games (8 hours for me apparently, and as I know their house style pretty well I suspect that's a relatively quick run through) and has a few different ending to get with a load of completely optional puzzles in the final section. They could do with beefing up their engine a bit though as the visuals are starting to look pretty creaky at this point. Well, on Android anyway; I've got a suspicion it might look better on the iOS side of the fence. They story line is barely there and the four ending literally don't make a lick of sense but who cares, you're there for the atmosphere and the puzzles and the wonderful satisfaction of the weighty interaction with the world; factors which are all present and correct.

1. Fallout 4
2. The Room 3
3. Republique Episode 4: the concept of stealth through indirect control continues to be an interesting one, especially as a way to work around touch screen issues in traditional games, but in reality it often just means a disconnect between yourself and the game. There's rarely any challenge in the game aside from specific points where it's hard to see what's going on so the gameplay itself is pretty lacking. This isn't helped by the fact that with this level there were only a couple of maps which you had to repeatedly go around picking stuff up or interacting with objects while avoiding a single lumberingly lethal enemy. Previous chapters focused on a more traditional stealth setup, giving you a facility with rooms containing patrolling guards, and that made for much higher levels of tension (albeit with some attendant frustration). The high point is definitely the voice acting and dialogue in the audio logs you come across which paint interesting snippets of story via sympathetic characters. Sadly this episode has nothing as compelling as the virtual snooping from the previous ep which gave you a glimpse into the lives of the usually anonymous guards patrolling the facility. At a wider level though I'm not really sure what's going on with the story and I'm not sure whether that's because it's being badly told or because there are further reveals to come or simply because there's such a massive wait between each chapter that I'm forgetting what's going on during each gap.

1. Fallout 4
2. The Room 3
3. Republique Episode 4
4. Pixel Arrow: short and relatively easy Metroidvania for Android. Gets the basics pretty much right but would benefit from giving you more reasons to explore as you can finish the game with chunks of the map unseen.

1. Fallout 4
2. The Room 3
3. Republique Episode 4
4. Pixel Arrow
5. Pixel Sword: made by the same developer as Pixel Arrow and Pixel Staff which I played last year. However, while the other two are short but fun Metroidvanias, Pixel Sword is just a series of nine linear levels followed by the shittest boss fight known to man. Total balls.

When do you play all your games, Bamba? Do you have a really long commute?

No, my commute is technically seven minutes long (although it's more like ten in reality). That aside it's just whenever I've got a few minutes of downtime so sometimes over lunch at work, on the toilet, while actually waiting for trains to arrive, stuff like that. I am surprised myself at how many I seem to manage to get through. Obviously some of them can be quite short but there's quite a few games that I'll start and never finish which don't get listed here but still take up time so that probably balances that out. So, um, I dunno, is the answer.

I've thought this too. Do you play a lot in the evenings at home? Also, how often do you charge your battery?

Very, very rarely do I play mobile games in the evening; it needs to be something that's really hooked me or maybe that I'm very near finishing when I get off the train. I only charge my phone once a day as I don't think my 'screen on' time will be much greater than other people; it's just I might be playing games at time when others are on Facebook or whatever.

I've really, really gone off mobile games again. Looking back at these threads I completed a lot of them in the back end of 2014 and beginning of last year, but I've played nothing in months. Same goes for 3DS and Vita - just gone off mobile gaming completely.

I think it totally depends on your circumstances. I haven't really played on my 3DS for a while and the only reason I can think of is that I've had an Xbox one so if I'm playing a game at home, I'll play that... Not that I get much time to do that either.

1. Fallout 4
2. The Room 3
3. Republique Episode 4
4. Pixel Arrow
5. Pixel Sword
6. Tomb Raider Anniversary: Man, I love the older Tomb Raider games so much. Obviously the graphics are far from cutting edge (it was released in 2007 after all!) but the game itself was still brilliant fun to go through. Just you and a load of massive room-sized puzzles to swing around on and plan your route through. Well, aside from the odd animal encounter and genuinely fun boss fight thrown in. The only slight issue is that the final levels just aren't as much fun as the previous ones as they become a good bit more linear and throw in a load of repetitive combat. But, still, yes, excellent stuff.

1. The Swapper (PC)
2. Her Story (PC)
3. Metro 2033 Redux (PC)
4. Grand Theft Auto IV (Xbox 360)

It has taken me forever to get through this, because it really is a frustrating, brown-grey, stuttering turd of a snooze-fest. I don't know why I insisted on playing it through until the end. I guess I kept hoping it would get better, but it never did. How did this get 10/10 on Eurogamer? There are rumours, of course...

Don't forget that it's sequel - one of the best games I've ever had the pleasure of playing - only got 9/10.

By this logic really old games should all get 1/10 because they look shit and the gameplay is primitive. All review scores are relative to other games released around those times (also one person's opinion). Not sure why you expect them to match up.

This is why any review score aggregator is inherently flawed.

Also I loved GTA IV at the time, but I'm sure it wouldn't be so good now after V.

Yes, indeed.


Yes, indeed.


I don't expect them to judge GTA V against GTA IV (except for any sensible comparison in the review itself), but in anyone's* world, GTA V is as near to perfect as we're going to get for some time.

* well, okay, lots and lots of people's world. But a reviewer should know that.

I didn't particularly like GTA4. Felt clunky, like a bit of a chore and had too much bowling in it. Multiplayer was better (Naked men knife fights) but still felt a little treacley.

I also haven't found 5s single player to be that engaging. Multiplayer though. Different kettle of sardines. Bought it twice to play with 2 groups of friends.

IV was tedious and forgot about being funny.

1. Magicka 2 (PC)
2. Broforce (PC)
3. Tower od Guns PC


Suck on that, past me.

Except I believe there's a hidden ending, given I found a hidden exit. But I took the win.

I think they may have patched it a little since I played it last. Felt more rounded, which might be why past me is having to suck it.

1. Fallout 4
2. The Room 3
3. Republique Episode 4
4. Pixel Arrow
5. Pixel Sword
6. Tomb Raider Anniversary
7. Reveal the Deep: an 'exploration' game for Android that puts you in the clanking suit of a deep sea diver exploring the wreck of an old ship. The story of lurking horror plays out via found diary entries and there's the usual light platforming and puzzle solving to be getting on with. It's nice looking in a pixelly way and very atmospheric due almost entirely to the sound design, which does a good job of replicating the ominous watery creaking and clunking you'd expect from a deep sea wreck. One of the main problems though is that it commits the cardinal sin for a mobile game of having no save points aside from the start of each of the three chapters so I ended up playing each chapter a few times until I got to the point I could race through them in a single lunch time or commute. Also the gameplay itself is pretty light and the ending makes absolutely no sense at all, which is a bit of a shitter in a game that's not got a lot else going on. It was a nice enough experience and swiping your little diver through the ship is quite satisfying in it's own way but I can't agree with all the praise it seems to have gotten on Steam and whatnot.

Oh, hey, Babma - I got stuck on a game I was playing yesterday so shamelessly watched a video ad to get a hint and it was an advert for an Android game called "Secret Society" which was about finding hidden objects and I thought "huh, Bamba might like that. I should tell him".

And now I have.

This one? I've seen it around but I'm not sure if I've played it or not. Finding these games is pretty easy to be honest as there's a number of publishers that specialise almost entirely in them so it's just a case of browsing their store pages to try and find the ones that look decent. G5 Games there is one of them but there's also Big Fish, Artifex Mundi and Alawar. The problem generally is that they all publish games made by various devs and there's a fair variance in quality so finding the decent ones from the massive list that's available is the challenge. What's good though is they're almost all available as a 'free' version that lets you get so far then offers a single IAP to unlock the whole game so trying before you buy is no problem.

Sometimes wonder if Bamba is/was the type of person who can never find anything in his house.

Then I imagine he was the guy on BGT singing where's me keys where's me phone.

BGT?

Bamba's Got Tourettes.

Big Girls Tits.

Bionic Goat Testicles

Belligerent Gypsy Tadpoles

Bad guy ties.

Buttocks Growing Toadstools

Blowing Gigantic Todgers

Bodacious Gonads Tomorrow

Give My Regards To Broadway

1. Magicka 2 (PC)
2. Broforce (PC)
3. Tower od Guns (PC)
4. Broken Age (PC)
It's a short game. Potentially interesting, but as with many mysterious things the explanations don't quite add up.

Oh, and the snake puzzle was bobbins.

1. Transistor - Looks and sounds great, but it's just ok. Definitely not as good as Bastion.
2. VVVVVV - Don't know why i was leaving it rotting here on the Steam backlog. It's brilliant. What a great soundtrack.

6) Until Dawn. (PS4)

I really liked this from start to finish. It's an almost perfect premise for the Heavy Rain style with its slow laborious trekking about, QTEs and Choose Your Own Adventure styling. I don't think anyone will be bored as the story progresses and people start dying. Most gamers will know that you have to save your band of teenie scumbags so when you start losing them you might say a little "Bollocks" and make a mental note to do it again differently if you do a second playthrough. It's silly, of course, with the slasher theme giving way to Resident Evil T-Virus stuff later on but no less enjoyable throughout. I probably wouldn't recommend anyone buy it full price but if you see the price come down to a level that you might be happy with for a game that lasts, say, 8 hours at most, then I'd take the plunge and jump right in for a reet good laugh. Yes, there are jump scares and they are all really well done and, yes, I jumped a few times. It's that good.

But when you start a second playthrough it all falls apart.

The game starts with an intro movie depicting a butterfly and showing how all actions have branching consequences. The camera follows a line across the butterfly wing giving the impression that there could be multiple stories to be had here. There ain't. There's one story and the differences aren't that great throughout with a couple of sequences always having the same outcome regardless of what you do. I suppose it does a good job of giving you the impression that there are vastly different branching story lines but the reality is that things don't change that much or as much as I'd have liked. There are some cool things that happen the second time around but the inability to skip some cut scenes (like this repeating "Previous On Until Dawn" bullshit) and the slow pace that you walk around the environments really hurt the experience on repeated runs as you know what is coming and where you want to go. I haven't completed a second playthrough and I'm not sure I want to turn it on again. Except to check out Jessica's badunkadunk though, aye lads? AMIRITE?

Still, bloody good the first time 'round. Check it oot.

7) Transformers: Devastation. (PS4)

The best Transformers game you will ever play. It's typical Platinum Games arena based fighting but dressed up in generation 1 Transformers that have come right from your childhood memories. Unfortunately there are some problems with it (a fight in a tunnel with no floor against Starscream is terrible, there's no aerial combat for some reason (weird this, as Bayonetta was capable of having a different aerial moveset and unique attacks but Transformers just get normal combat moves in the air. Very strange and a bit annoying.) and the story is trash) but this is all balanced out by being a big old fat slice of nostalgia for your senses.

8 ) Half-Life: Opposing Force. (PC)

I've never been the biggest fan of Half-Life uno since I have much more fond memories of the brilliance of HL2. Then I played Black Mesa and I rediscovered why Half-Life is fucking aces. HLOP is more of the same but I had to endure washed out textures of a begone era. It's still good though, just not as good as Black Mesa. Obviously it's shorter, it has a fucking green wash night vision display instead of a torch (Hnngh. So ugly), and I could not follow the story except to say that you play as a solider infiltrating Black Mesa which goes bad and then everyone has to pull out (...sex tape etc). Except you never quite learn why the soldiers are killing everyone in HL1 and never quite understand why the Black Ops are called in and start murdering the soldiers. I got a bit confused and I was really paying attention. Then you kill a big monster coming out a hole and it ends.

Well, I liked it regardless. I'm not interested in Blue Shift now thanks to this but I have a much deeper appreciation for the work that must have gone into Black Mesa. What a terrific game that was.

9) Lost Planet 3. (PC)

Yeah, so I went back and finished it. It wins, in my mind, as the most boring game ever created. Go here, fix this, go here, talk to him, go here, press button, go here, press another button, get in rig, go here, press button. Technically competent but so mind-numbingly boring. Lost Planet 1 and 2 are both mental so I haven't got a clue what this nonsense reboot is all about. All I know is, it killed a fun series. Thanks a lot. You cunts.