Pyre

Pyre is made by the same people that did Transistor (8.5/10 imo) and Bastion (7.5/10 imo). I really enjoyed both of those games. The art style and music were home runs for me and the games were fun to play (Bastion was a tad too long as it got repetitive towards the end, although Transistor was the absolute perfect length). So I preordered this one and got to check it out this week.

I quite enjoyed how they went in an entirely different direction this time. While Bastion and Transistor felt like near constant action, Pyre is basically a visual novel with a small minigame throughout each cycle. It's heavily focused on the story (about 80% of the game is reading backstory, making decisions based on things others are saying, learning about what's happening, and developing not only your characters but your adversaries as well).

The mini game is a quick paced game similar to basketball where your team of three tries to put the ball in the opponents circle while defending their own. The mini game is one you can fully customize. Each character has different strengths/weaknesses, there's an ability tree for each of them as they progress, and there are talismans that also give them various abilities.

That perk highlights the big positive of the game: it branches out in an extremely large number of ways. There is no set story. Rather, your story depends on the things you choose to do. How you respond to people, who you choose for your team, how you customize your team, whether you win or lose, where you choose to go, and who you choose to face are all things that have an effect on the story. Unlike most games, whether you win or lose doesn't matter. If you win the story branches one way. If you lose, you learn from that loss and it branches another. They claim that it's very hard for two people to play the exact same game. Which is pretty cool.

The downside is that it does get repetitive after a bit. There are quite a number of cycles with few deviations once it gets rolling. The mini game is fun to play though and the story is interesting, so it's not a huge deal. There definitely was a stretch where I was ready for it to end before it hit the end game however.

Overall the game has some beautiful art, some great music, a thorough and interesting story, good character development, and a fun mini game to play. I just wish it were 90 minutes shorter.


Final rating: 6.5/10 (still worth playing for sure)

Team fortress 2 360 still my most played game

Got ps4 and overwatch but no game I have on next gen is close to this

Would love get pc just for this game but too much money for a poor person

Those demoman and engineering dudes still give me nightmares.

10/10 value brings out half life 3 and tf2 that would be heaven but never going happen.

I never really got into TF2 but just tried out Killing Floor 2 and am loving it, similar to Left4Dead if you ever played that but more focus on different classes.

I really dug KF2 and my only real beefs with it was that there are only 2 bosses and since you have to play SOOOO goddamn much to unlock the perks, it got a little boring quick. Its awesome with a group of friends though.

Having only 2 bosses is ridiculous, that is an unbelievable decision to me in terms of affecting replay value. I wonder if they sped up the perks because I got a Gunslinger to level 7 after a few games while splashing around other classes.

Yep.

That, BF:BC2, and Halo: Reach are still GOATs.

Just got into bayonatta free Xbox live forgot how fun game is, as long as you skip the below average story

Those extra stages were have limits are tough, stuck on the part were have stay in air for 60 something seconds, got to 1sec left couple times arrgh

Great game even though a just button bash same move that works, and also get aching hands due to all the evades, trying get better then stone trophy end level which is hard for me

Love tune fly me to the moon catchy tune sticks in my head after playing

8.5/10

just finished playing the campaing on cod ghosts, i think it doesnt deserves anything to write about, but a warning for all to not commit that mistake.

F

Costume Quest (PS3) - Had a lot of fun with this charming light RPG, bought and finished all today in about 6-7 hours for 100%. You're a kid going trick-or-treating, your twin gets kidnapped by monsters, you have to go trick or treating and fight monsters to get them back.

I was fine with paying the $15 full price, but there's a decent chance this will go on sale in the next week or two.

There's a demo you can try.

Highly recommend for holiday cheer.

I'll almost certainly get the $5 winter-themed DLC during this Xmas season, and will probably play CQ2 in October 2018 or '19.

Ducktales (originally NES, played on PS4 Disney Afternoon Collection) - Fantastic game, and I think I'm saying that independent of nostalgia. The graphics are high quality for what could be done on the system, with detailed sprites and backgrounds. The levels are somewhat complex - five mini Metroidvanias. Obv the music is great (Moon theme is overrated though, having reached that incredibly annoying upper tier of nerd culture in which some nerds think it's literally the greatest composition in the history of mankind).

The levels are varied and there are minor changes to the core gameplay in different levels that keep things interesting.

I finished it on Difficult and would recommend you do the same (start on Normal if you want to get your bearings first). It's not THAT difficult (probably only took 2-4 hours of play time to eventually finish), but the increased level makes extra lives and extra health much more valuable and forces increased exploration for those.

The NES version really is a well designed game that tried a lot of new things for the time and pulled it off. The cane mechanic alone has been mimicked so many times since. The levels are mostly really well thought out and like you said each add a simple mechanic that keeps it fresh.

I originally played the Game Boy version as a kid and was obsessed with it without knowing there was a NES version despite owning a NES at the time. About a year later I saw it at a video store, rented it and was blown away.

Since you have no nostalgia towards it then I'd say steer clear of the HD Remaster. It adds some pretty fun and interesting boss fights but apart from that it pretty much ruins the flow of the original game. Level design is altered, your objective is different and it's just not as fun.

When the internet happened and I learned moon theme being top tier was the general consensus I was pretty shocked. Transylvania is easily the best in the game.

Yea listening again now.

Should have been more clear about nostalgia - this was the first real game I ever beat (though always on Easy). I certainly have lots of nostalgia for it. What I mean is that I think I was coming to it this time with a long enough break since I'd last played it, and that I was able to look at it semi-objectively.

I've had a borrowed copy of the Gameboy version since the mid-late '90s.

In early 2017 before the collection was announced, I was preparing myself to pay the $250 or whatever for an NES copy of Ducktales 2.

Episode 1 of both Telltale's Game of Thrones and Batman were surprisingly good. I quit Game of Thrones show/books but enjoyed the episode a lot, and it's about the same for Batman. Batman is a lot clunkier for some reason despite being newer.

With Batman you have the same old crap - stupid alley flashbacks and theater tickets, childhood friend who becomes a villain, Harvey Dent's mayoral campaign, Falcone - but it's interesting (except for the alley flashbacks) with new elements.

Game of Thrones is well acted, even using Dinklage and Headey as well as their likenesses (prob some others too that I don't recognize).

Tales from the Borderlands was great if you haven’t played it; does not require any experience with the other Borderlands games though it certainly helps to understand the universe.

Mass Effect Andromeda
Horrible, clunky, unresponsive gameplay.
Cluttered and convoluted weapon/armour/etc trees.
Ugly graphics.
Plenty to do but it all comes at you fast, leaving you feeling a bit overwhelmed.
Awful maps and lousy waypoint marking make this a really frustrating game to play.
Worst of the ME franchise imo.

On the plus side, I did get to **** Feebee.

Dirt 4 - PS4

I liked the previous Dirt games on PS3 a lot, and PS4 seems to suffer from a real dearth of racing games that don't suck ass, so when I saw Dirt 4 in a sale I picked it up. It's pretty good, for a while, I guess? You can choose between 'simulation' handling (for nerds) and 'arcade' handling (for people who like to have fun), and I had a good time turning off my brain and driving through the pretty mountains and forests while listening to podcasts. But the main mode has no real variation, and no actual races (it's just a time trial, and if your time trial is faster than the other guys, you win). I guess that's the nature of rally games, but I swear old Dirt games had races in? There's a secondary mode where you can race on a dirt track in weird buggy things, but the weird buggy things were lame so I didn't bother with it much. I finished the main rally career mode and decided that was enough, so I traded it in for Resident Evil VII.

7.5/10, PS4 needs better racing games. At least the remastered Wipeout collection is really sweet.

Yea I've heard. I'm going to wait until I've finished The Pre-Sequel (currently finishing up Borderlands 2 DLC). Tales is meant to be the latest game from a story standpoint I believe, and a co-worker just told me yesterday that he wished he'd played Pre-Sequel before Tales.

Seconding this. Considering how much I adored the first Walking Dead game, this being my favorite TT game still shocks me.

South Park: The Fractured But Whole

A lot of the cut scenes were hilarious and all the Tweek & Craig yaoi were so amusing that it's worth $50 just for that. The gameplay is definitely an improvement on TSOT but not really great compared to other RPG standards.

I'd give it an 8.5/10


If any of you guys have the game and are interested in the Towelie code or the code for the extra artefacts feel free to PM me for them as I never used them. (PS4)

I can still remember AC being introduced to me during my OJT days.

It was AC 2 I think; I loved the gameplay and above all, the story.

And also the concept of 'we walk in the dark, to serve the light'. Then you are initiated and take a leap of faith.

Can I hear an eagle please?

(feeling initiated into the brotherhood

I played this once in iPad. looks interesting.. however, it was relatively new at that time, so after the first episode, i lost track and interest on the game.


Geez, I wonder if that man transformed into a wolf at all, hence the title 'The Wolf Among Us'.

Might revisit it if it still exists

Brothers: A Tale of Two Son is only a couple of hours was alright.
8/10
Pretty cool and addictive

Alright = pretty cool & addictive?

How can a game that only lasts two hours be addictive?