The original Mass Effect.

I didn't get past the first mission when it came out in 2007, I was too hungover from Bioware's excellent KOTOR, all of this new lore seemed too alien, for want of a better word. I couldn't get on with it. I missed the lightsabers!

But having played 2, 3 and Andromeda, and with the time that's passed, the races and the worlds have more legitimacy now, time to sink in and that.

And what a triumph this is! yes some of the gameplay is a bit clunky now but the story is perfect, science fiction at its best, and it's sad to think that this game is of a bygone era, peak Bioware the likes of which we may never see again. Not a microtransaction in sight. Ah...

I was probably chief nay-sayer as I gave it a [4] in the end. I agree that playing it for the character interactions is the best way to approach it. There's a reasonably good walking sim in there but you don't eat steak and kidney pie because you fancy a steak, especially if the pastry and kidney bits aren't to your liking (am I doing it right?)

The Gunk 'crossing some invisible gameplay threshold' is too meta for me. Glad you enjoyed it, it's not horrendous but I strongly disliked it.

Whilst I've enjoyed the hour or so I've put into The Gunk so far, the dialogue and interactions between the characters was not one of the positives.

Another struck off the stack of shame - finished Dark Souls 3 which has definitely won me over after my initial hate for the game.

For my first runs I bodged the character builds and was punished for it, but this time I did a very straightforward strength build. Used Vordt's hammer for most of it after starting with the butcher knife - felt absolutely overpowered. Even at 50 str the FUGS couldn't match it.

Ffs. I’ll give it another couple of hours then.

b0r1s wrote:

Guardians of The Galaxy (PS5) -

Elf asking if this is kid friendly, generally yes, but there is one bit that would be a bit of a no-no for young kids.

Okay for 11 year olds? Can you spoiler what's bad about it? My daughter's watched both movies btw, so if it's no worse than android prostitute reference...

I've stopped religiously writing my completions here, gonna try to get back into the habit... in recent reverse chronological order...

Toem (PS5)
I suspect I have no soul but I was a bit more meh about it than others seen to be. Yes it's "cute" but insufficiently so to cover it's slightness and it wasn't particularly fun out anything so I'm going [7] I guess.

Kena: Bridge of Spirits (PS5)
Liked it a lot more than I expected. Doesn't outstay it's welcome, while the combat isn't exactly Dark Souls it's not awful either, and oof those bosses are actually pretty full-on. And it looks stunning, top notch production values throughout really. [8].

Unpacking (SeX)
Liked it. Does what it says in the tin, cathartic, nostalgic, hints of story. [8].

I'm sure I've played a few others, but literally a year ago.

I played 3 a bit, similar difficulty but not as good.
Agree on 2 great game despite mr x

Is Nemesis the same deal? An unkillable enemy relentlessly pursuing you around the map?

Firewatch (Xbox) - Feels like someone came up with a vague concept for a narrative adventure game and never ultimately decided what they wanted to say with it. There's definately a lot of merit in the dialogue and it was interesting to listen to Henry and Delilah's relationship develop but I never found the narrative particularly engaging and spent a lot of the playthrough feeling quite bored.

The graphics are no longer particularly interesting in 2021, if they ever were (it seems the console version was never patched for the stronger boxes, which doesn't help). I had a glitch where the objective marker got stuck halfway through the game and never recovered even when I restarted the game. In one location I had to leave and re-enter by a different route to get the story to trigger.

This has the most bizarrely inconsistent application of the 'never show human faces or figures' walking simulator trope - the game goes out of its way to avoid you encountering people up close and in a couple of places it contrives to hide faces in photographs and during part of the story. Yet you also see the faces of various characters including yourself in photographs throughout the game and you see much of your character's stylised figure during traversal animations. I think some walking simulators avoid showing human face and figures to hide a lack of photorealism amidst fairly photoreal environmental graphics but this game uses a very obviously stylised art style so that doesn't really apply here. Why do walking simulators avoid depicting other characters? Where does this trope come from? Isn't it a bit limiting producing a game entirely focussed on narrative and emotional engagement and yet never directly featuring a single character except the player? It confuses me why the spirt of walking simulators we had were so homogenous in design and I think gamers were right to ultimately be cynical of it as a proto-genre - a lot of its design points seem arbitrary or perhaps a little too focused around the needs of production than the needs of the player.

Er, anyway, I'm starting to ramble now. Yeah, so Firewatch, didn't particularly like it to be honest - it's no Edith Finch! [4]

Walking sims seem to split opinion more than most genres. The only one that gets a high average of double thumbs up on here is Finch, from what I've seen.

I'd read Tacoma was good, hated it.
I'd read that Rapture was bad, loved it.

Castlevania: Rondo of Blood PC Engine mini

The ending took me by surprise. I only had a 60% completion rating when I finally got past a troublesome boss, only for the game to inform me that this stage was the last one. I thought I had at least 5 to go, off my percentage. Hard to complain though, I loved every second. Perfect old school gaming: you initially think it's going to be a "walk to the right and not die to win", but then the subtleties and secrets start coming to the fore. I'll have to have another go at Dracula with Richter, as I beat him using Maria so I could abuse her double jump to avoid projectiles. The only let down is the OG vampire himself - he's a bit easy after the previous fight.

Still, this makes me want to get the Advance Collection. Absolutely wonderful.

[9] whippings out of [10] roasts hidden in a brick wall.

Thought fire watch was meant to be good?
Can’t you all go somewhere else, discuss, come to a consensus and then come back and tell me what to play?

Guardians of the Galaxy (PS5)

A bit of a surprise for me this one.  A rare example of a game that gets progressively better.  Which is a good thing really, as I wasn't particularly enamoured of it at all at first. The fights (of which there are many) are clunky and repetitive, the Mass Effect Lite conversations are sometimes overly long, and don't appear to change the outcome of anything enormously.

As I said in the "currently playing" thread, I kept going only because my kids bought it for me.  Yet, somehow, the whole thing blossoms over the course of play.  The fights remain repetitive, but the fiddly mechanics become a little more elegant as you grow more accustomed and the options open up a little.  The conversations, whilst still applying a handbrake to the momentum at time, prove to be essential to building up a sense of your relationship to the wider team.  The great revelation though is not in these obvious, and sometimes clumsy, mechanics, but in the subtle stuff that's in there.

So, yeah, not a masterpiece, but defnitely worth my time.  I found myself at the end hoping that other games learnt lessons from this one - definitely not a view I was expecting to have at the start.


Ratchet and Clank - A Rift Apart

The first Ratchet and Clank game I've actually finished, which says something I guess. (Though whether it's about me or the game, I'm not sure).  I usually get bored at some point and drift away, but this one kept me in there for the duration.

That said, it's not anything particularly game changing either.  The much vaunted "rift" stuff feels fairly inconsequential in reality. Occassionally connecting to a rift to get to another part of the map feels like a slightly less exciting version of the swingshot. The rifts opening to other dimensions at various points are so scripted as to again feel unexciting.  It may or may not be a technical achievement, but it didn't do much for the gameplay.

Still, the game's fun, the ridiculous roster of weapons similarly so. (Topiary Sprinkler ftw)  I had a good time with it, but it was ultimately slight, and left me craving something a bit more substantial. I guess it's the gaming equivalent of (very expensive) fast food.