Interesting, was hearing a lot of good things about Yakuza series (even from some people I'd consider on the "woke" side) and do plan on trying one. Loved Sleeping Dogs.

Well mine certainly seems to be a minority opinion, so don’t take my word for it. There is more to to the game as well. Kiryu gets to manage a real estate portfolio, Majima manages cabaret clubs. The problem is that you can only do those things when controlling those characters, but the game forces you to switch protagonists every two chapters. I think at some point you can switch freely, but that hadn’t happened by chapter 8.

That’s a general point about Yakuza’s approach that I don’t understand. It’s restrictively linear for such a long time. It’s not a bad idea for open world games to be linear for a while until the player understands how the game works, and then open up. But there’s no need to be so linear for so long.

I'm not writing a whole review, but I decided to replay Bioshock because a) I was looking for a change of pace, and b) I didn't remember finishing it.

It still holds up. What a fantastic game. GOAT setting and ambience. I can't wait to finish so I can move on to Bioshock 2 and Infinite, which I have but never played.


EDIT: The game has implanted the earworm, "Je-sus loves me yes I know..."

A MAN CHOOSES A SLAVE OBEYS

Man, 3.5 years since this thread has a post? It should be resurrected, it's a good idea for a thread. I'll give a short one:

Curse of the Dead Gods
7.5/10

Curse of the Dead Gods is a rogue-like isometric action game, where you play an explorer delving into one of three temples. As you play you fight an array of monsters, collecting gold and trinkets for run-specific health and damage upgrades, and 3 types of permanent currency to permanently upgrade your character/your future runs. As you go further and further into runs you build up a Corruption meter (through entering new rooms, getting hit with some attacks, and in exchange for upgrades if you choose), which periodically afflicts you with a curse of some nature that make your run harder (although in some cases, if managed correctly can actually turn out net-beneficial). You can get 4 relatively bearable curses, but if supposedly the 5th curses are very bad (I never made it long enough to get a 5th). When you die you start at the beginning, spend your permanent currency to upgrade, and start again.

I picked up the game hoping for something similar to Hades, which I finished earlier this year and was maybe my favorite game of all time, absolutely a top-10. However, while the art/drawing style and isometric perspective were similar to Hades, the combat reminded more more of Dead Cells due to having a primary and secondary weapon that is somewhat random at the start of the run, then you can both change and upgrade weapons throughout the runs. The combat is much slower than either game - at least it needs to be; if you dash in sword swinging hoping to stun enemies before they hit you, you'll soon find yourself with mouthful of broken teeth. This game is more about learning enemy attacks, timing deflections/parries (which weaken enemies if done correctly), and attacking efficiently to manage stamina than the offense-forward gameplay of Hades, and to a lesser extent Dead Cells.

Overall I found this a good game, but not good enough to keep me hooked (I have a 30+ game backlog and only play 4-6 hours a week usually, unless I really get sucked into something). There are a variety of weapons to unlock and explore, and nothing felt either particularly over- or under-powered in my 10-15 runs. Enemy design is well done, and traps were clever and while they often hit me, I never felt them unfair.

One big detraction for me is a complete lack of story - there's good art but literally nothing describing your motivation, where the monsters come from, etc. Coming from Hades this is (obviously if you've played it) a huge distinction, as Hades has one of the very best stories and sets of dialog ever. Even Dead Cells, while it doesn't have nearly as clear a story, has some NPCs and backstory of the island to piece together as you play. Dead Gods has literally nothing in this regard: start a run, try to kill enemies, eventually die, start next run. No talking, no text.

More than that though, I just felt like if I wanted to focus on this type of random-weapon runs, I enjoyed Dead Cells more than COTDG. The combat felt a smidge tighter, and I appreciated the option of having a faster, more direct combat choice present in Dead Cells. I only ever beat 1 boss cell in DC and probably didn't unlock more than half the weapons, if I'm going to invest time, I'd do it over there rather than here. But, if you're looking for something to play and like the genre, the game goes on sale sometimes for under $10, you can do a lot worse.

Returnal - I bought this roguelikr ages ago, found the gameplay good but brutally difficult, stopped playing. I gave it another bash after installing an easy mode mod and a mod that gives you extra lives. Despite all that, I died on the second boss. The thought of going through all those areas again was just... uninstall.

There's a great game lying under the uncompromising difficulty. The immensely frustrating thing is that your permanent power level barely increases. Each run starts with you just as weak as you were when you first played.

I don't agree. You just have to commit to a lot of deaths, which results in you finding more artifacts and leveling up gun traits. I've finished the game three or four times now. At this point, with everything unlocked, I'd estimate that i have a 90% chance of finishing a game without ever getting sent back to the beginning. And that's avenging every scout and clearing every challenge room.

as mentioned in the other thread, I recently had a long streak of not finishing games (which I usualy do), none of them were really bad, but they just didn't work for me. Here's a few (not sure if that's all):

Ori and the Will of Wisps - I love metroidvanias and the presentation of Ori games is beautiful, but they are just too platforming heavy for my taste. The combat was supposed be a bigger focus in the sequel. but it also didn't work for me. Additionally, the plot felt kinda like sadness porn, where they kept introducing new characters just to kill them off in a saddest way imaginable. It's a good game, but not for me

Aeterna Noctis - same as above, good metroidvania, but extremely platforming heavy. The sheer scope of it is impressive, but it just didn't grab me for the same reason

Last Hero of Nostalgaia - an interesting case of a satirical souslike with some neat ideas and great world design, but the combat was just too janky to keep me interested. I am a huge fan of indie games, but I feel like 3d soulslikes kinda require a bigger budget, because janky combat is a no-go in this genre

Dredge - got it as a freebe from Epic and was quite excited, the beginning was awesome with its haunting atmosphere and fun gameplay, but in the long run fishing as a core gameplay loop just doesn't do it for me

Blue Fire - 3d metroidvania heavily inspired by Hollow Knight, looks awesome on paper and feels good to play, but again - the combination of heavy platforming emphasis and uninspired combat made me drop it. This and Aeterna Noctis I might re-visit relatively soon, but I'm probably done with the rest

I had a similar experience with RDR, got bored with rounding up horses and other seemingly meaningless exercises. Sold the game, then went back to it a couple of years later and realized all that "unnecessary" stuff was just training for what was ahead. I now consider it one of the greatest games of all-time, just behind RDR2. Makes me wonder about all the other games I gave up on early, like the Witcher series and God of War.

Red dead redemption
I really liked the setting and characters in this one but wasn't having fun. I spent ages ridding to get somewhere then got off the horse and was killed by a cougar out of the blue and I couldn't be bothered to ride all the way back so I stopped playing.[/QUOTE]

in a surprising twist, I gave up on Tunic a while ago - I was super excited to play it, as everything I heard about this game sounded fantastic to me. Unfortunately, I just couldn't get over how bad the combat felt to me, plus the controls were terrible. Why do you have to hold down the lock on button FOR THE ENTIRE TIME?! I think I made it through arund 2/3 of the game and just couldn't get myself to play anymore

I must be missing something about Warhammer Space Marine 2. The enemy hordes are impressive to begin with, no doubt. But then you fight the same damn horde over and over again, and it becomes boring. The lack of enemy variety is painfully noticeable when you're repeatedly thrown into the same combat situation.

Compounding the repetitiveness is the:
- bland level design (shoot, run down corridor, press button, ride lift, repeat)
- encounter design (shoot hordes in large open space, stop hordes before timer runs out)
- samey weapons (there are like four varieties of machine gun which behave almost identically)
- clunky movement (you swing your sword and roll with all the grace of an obese rhino)

As a result of all this, every level feels too long. The campaign's "only" 12 hours. I had to bail and uninstall well before that.

PS: AAA games suck. I struggle to remember the last one I enjoyed.

Expedition 33

It's rare that a game lives up to the hype, but this one definitely did for me.

10/10

oops wrong tghread lol