Played a bunch of games recently which I’ll add to the 52 games thread, but 2 that I recently just completed absolutely blew me away.

Rhythm Doctor and Citizen Sleeper - 2 absolute crackers and also a little sad to find out they were 2021 releases, as otherwise they’d be clear leaders in my ‘22 GotY.

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I thought it was boring

Here: http://thebearandbadger.co.uk/discussion/9/just-completed/p276

And me and Matty discussing it here. Both are completed so maybe some mild spoilers in this thread: http://thebearandbadger.co.uk/discussion/2319/x-box-one-series-s-and-x-thread-of-ms-doing-it-better/p495

I gave it a 9. Story was great and free DLC coming too.

You fellas need to play NORCO, that's where the real narrative GOTY magic is.

Silke wrote:

You fellas need to play NORCO, that's where the real narrative GOTY magic is.

Bought it as a result of this rec. No pressure, but I've decided to pin all my future hopes and dreams on this game being good.

I’m gonna have to finish this now. But it’s Stray day.

I hit max level a couple of attempts before I made it. Agree with the luck, especially with enemy/forbidden fruit placement, but a tiny bit of not-my-fault! frustration probably suited game.

As Dusk Falls (Xbox Series X): This is essentially a visual novel with a cinematic format featuring somewhat Hotel Dusk-influenced visuals with pretty much pure choose-your-own-adventure gameplay. Two families clash in a robbery turned violent hostage situation with lasting consequences for all involved. The game has some rudimentary point-and-click and QTE segments but, being honest, they feel like a half-hearted sop to interactivity. The QTEs in particular may as well not be there - the only one I failed in the whole game was because I failed it deliberately. They're very basic and seemed designed around super-casuals perhaps playing the game via the companion app - it would have been nice if the game had offered alternate Shenmue-style 'proper' QTEs.

A game like this lives or dies by the quality of the story and writing and fortunately this is actually pretty good. I was highly engaged throughout and my route through the game mostly felt like the 'proper' version of the story despite there being no such thing. The exception (genuine spoilers):

I enjoyed this immensely - I was grabbed by the drama of the story which was heightened by the COYA aspect, found the characters engaging and I even liked the controversial art style. However, I felt like it sacrificed the single-player experience in favour of the multi-player and Twitch experience and I'm not convinced it was a super-wise decision for a game in this niche. I think a lot of its players would have prefered richer interactivity over the ability to play it via their phone.

Probably the one major bad thing: the game ends on an anti-climactic sequel-bait cliffhanger. It's frustrating they chose to do this instead of leaving on a positive impression but it is what it is and the story of this game is fully wrapped up.

I would highly recommend this to fans of Hotel Dusk. I have no idea what other people would make of it. I really enjoyed it though! [8]

As a post-script, I do wonder what will happen with this developer and their next game. It doesn't sound like this has made a huge impression based on Steam data. A lot of people were turned off by the art style, quite a few people felt the second half of the game was weaker than the first (I enjoyed it all TBH), I think most people were disappointed by the cliffhanger. Plus the game requires 70GB of space on Series X and PC for some reason. I enjoyed it but I wonder if the developer hasn't made many friends with this one.

I finished the new Sniper Elite last week. I still don't quite get the Eurogamer 'essential' but I did have a lot of fun with it. I mostly tried to be a sneaky sniper but ended up making a mess of things and going full-on Rambo in most of the missions. The scale of the levels is really quite impressive. Starting a level with a huge chateau in the distance that you can go in explore countless rooms without any additonal loading is really cool.

Assassin's Creed: Origins - About 35 hours played and about 500 achievement points. By the time I got to the point I wanted it to end I'd uncovered the whole map and had to grind out the last too levels to get to 35. Still had about 20 side quests left but it's a bit like an all you can eat buffet with just burgers and chips..there's not enough variety in what your asked to do.. it's still fun and I can always eat a burger.. but it just gets a bit dull.

Plus, and it's a big plus, playing this after Odyssey it just isn't as good.

The combat and RPG aspects don't add anything to it. You get points you can spend but there's nothing that improves the game or how you go about it so you end up not really bothering, There's no spartan kick, Nothing that really opens up the stealth like it did in Odyssey.

The world is duller, I  mean it's good and the pyramids are nicely teased but it's mostly just sand,

The outpost aren't as fun to clear.

There's no boat upgrade, there's no magical creatures to go up against, there's no legendary creatures in amongst the animals your asked to kill. the weapons are samey, The tombs aren't as good, there's no battlefield stuff.

It's all solid but Odyssey improves on it in every single way and adds more stuff to do and overall I ended up finding the story a little bit dull.

A solid 8.

Finally finished Kena: Bridge of Spirits. Not much more to say that I haven't already said in other places tbh. It's fun, beautiful, charming, challenging at times, and doesn't outstay its welcome. There wasn't any part of the game I didn't enjoy, but the final section was where it really did a number on me, with a series of great mini-bosses and a very cool finale. It's also quite beautiful.

So pretty I spent 20% of my play time in photo mode/10

Ah, I have no idea. Played it on PC.

Edit: PC and PS atm, but it seems like it's only a timed exclusive so fingers crossed it'll land on Xbox before too long.

Cool. Thanks for that mate. Hopefully it’ll turn up on the Bone at some point then.