12 weeks, not 12 games,year 3, week 3

   I'm catching up, just 6 days behind at time of writing, so, with any look, by week 4 I should have caught up (as I suggested in the last post). It should be warned though that week 4 so far is lining up to be a bit of a stinker though, not in the AAAnes (haha, anus) of game, but in the actual quality of said games, critism on it's way. For this week though, there's a lot of shorter games, which is somewhat disappointing given I was off work, but I've been spending more of my time watching Dead like me, which isn't even that good. There's only really 1 game that I care about this week too and all I want to write about in honesty, but given that I'm trying to reach that goal of 12, which I'm already close to by the end of this, I'll talk about them anyway, in order of played too (tip, game 3 is what I'm referring to).

   Defy Gravity

     Oh yeah, 2D platformer, just like I've always loved. Finally I've got access to a computer, as I unnecessarily bought a new one, which I don't even think as is good as my new one, I'll get my old one fixed anyway but, honestly, I might return this one (if I can) and stick with the old one (if it's got enough RAM to run Xcom, which this has). The point I'm getting at is this is one of my 19, or maybe 39p (I can't remember now) Steam purchases, which I wasn't really sure I'd ever play, and who can turn that down, especially since I bought it with those pointless Steam trading cards that I don't even understand the existence of. Oh yeah, I was supposed to be talking about the game, not stewing bullshit (or was I?).
   So, 2d platformer as I said, it's about  1 1/2 hours long (a bit of a cheat I know) and it's passable at best. Essentially you get a gravity gone, one that sucks and one that blows gravity wells. You use this to climb walls. dodge bullets and solve simple puzzles. Your character moves as well as Marcus Phoenix and you can run of flippin' ammo (god this Jagermeister and Robinsons squash is awful (who'd have thought?)) and doesn't have a counter to how many shots you've used, which can be mighty annoying hen you can't jump the very last wall (top tip developers, put a shot counter in). As I implied. it's not hard and very short, but for the price I can't really moan but I'd recommend you give it a miss even at that price, sorry.

   Cibele

   Speaking of 19-39p short Steam games that suck, meat Cibele, a half live action, half awful playable game.   Heck, she's, only even even average looking (sorry actress), which I'm not saying is a bad thing (I wish I was average looking (not looking for sympathy btw)) but given the dialogue it really doesn't fit. It's about young love and it's trash. What's worse is that it's created by someone who worked on Gone home, which is an outstanding game, so even though that sets a high expectation, this doesn't live up to it.
   I'm noticing I'm just talking about how crap this game is without really explains what it is, so better do that. The main idea is that an online MMO has swept the world (almost as big as WOW), which you even get to play (that's the gameplay element), which is simply walking around a map and hitting things that don't even hit back, which frankly is a relief as I could barely stand it for the whole 61 minutes I played it for (according to Steam) and didn't want to add more time replaying after deaths. You also have to manage this girls social media by pressing the 'reply' button every 2 minutes, but this doesn't actually impact the plot in any way. That plot being you've met some guy who also plays this game and you fall in love, though he's not really bothered about meeting you, despite you saying you love each other a million times.
   That paragraph was getting long so I figured I start a new one even though this is going to carry straight on. The cut scenes are essentially you watching her on the phone to this guy talking to him, which just happens during the gameplay anyway, and watching her sitting at her computer playing the game, which you're thankfully not in control of. Anyway, ending is (spoilers (oh no!)) you meet after months of talking, bang, then he leaves and says he's not really in love with you, and never wants to see you again. that's it, cool story bro (or sis in this game). I way prefer criticising games than praising the, it's way more fun, shame about what's coming up next then. Here's a picture of the gameplay anyway, but it doesn't do any justice to how awful it is, an yes, those pink things are the enemies. Tip, it's not worth 19-39p, in fact, I should have been paid to play it!

   Oxenfree

   Here's the much talked about 3rd game, and it's actually a new game this time! It's an adventure game is the first thing to say, where the game is essentially making a series of conversation decisions while exploring an island. The thing that makes it so special is the insane story. It's full of evil spirits, alternate dimensions and time loops and more along those lines. Your conversations do matter too, despite the fact you're going to the island to get hammered with friends (it's just off the coast, not like some Lost island) you can really mess up your relationships with them which leads to some bad mojo and deaths galore. The story is branching of course, with a great array of endings (looked the others up) that leave just enough to your interpretation.
   I've never been a big adventure game fan, I've never played any of the loved early 90's array like Monkey Island, day of the tentacle, leisure suit Larry and so on and on and on. It doesn't matter here though. It's hard to really explain the game without spoiling it so I don't want to go in to too many details here, but that is making it hard to sell to you because I really think you should get it.

   Out there somewhere

   Back to the 19-39p 1 hour games (this is really starting to feel cheap now (as in time, not price (who cares about price, a games a game no matter the price (sounds like I'm defending the length now, which I sort of am, just criticising I'm including it as it looks like I'm trying to boost numbers)))) but there's a difference, it is worth the price this time. Sure, I wouldn't recommend it if it's £5 (ooh, back up to full price now, 79p!) but for the price that it was (and is), you should consider it. The mechanic here is teleportation, which is actually used quite well in a semi puzzle platformer way (like Defy gravity) but with a good mix of regular platforming in it too.
   It was a lot harder than I expected, and given that it took me 78 minutes to complete (again, according to Steam) you can understand as they have to up the difficulty pretty darn (trying not to swear (despite the fact in RL ever third word is a swear word)) fast to make it challenging at all. The quick plot (obvs) is that you crashed your ship, on a planet inhibiting by mean bugs and friendly worms and have to get new power sauce (Ref Dwaft reference not a typo (though series 8 so hmm)) to get home. It plays fine, not spectacular, it's fun and there's even some not well hidden collectibles which could add another 20 minutes if you really wanted (where's the insert button on this thing, ballsed is up (ah, found it but nothings changing weirdly (could be bad for writing Oxenfree as I've actually wrote this first))). Give this one a go, why not at that price, it's above average.

   My god I hope I can run Xcom 2, I'm 'psyched' for it but not sure my graphics card is up to snuff. There's week 4 first though, which as I referenced is full of frankly disappointing games. Still, just because of this blog I'm going to finish them anyway for some pointless reason, which I'd have given up on normally, and it's not even very often I give up on games anyway so shows the high levels of disappointment here. Oh, I also started the WWE 2K16 showcase this week but only played for about an hour (best of a bad bunch so far btw) so, as I'm already a ways in to this week I'll write up next week (yes, fixed the insert problem by refreshing the page so I won't have to leave in all the spelling and grammar errors, yet I'll leave the chatter in as it's seems like the mythology (yeah, excited for X files return) of this post. I wish I could get to sleep btw, I got about 4 hours sleep last night and now it's gone 1AM but can't get to sleep, stupid brain surgery, completely swapping directions from a week ago from a week or so ago where I was sleeping 12-14 hours a day (top tip, don't have it, it sucks, more info here http://andy8472.blogspot.co.uk/2015_10_01_archive.html and I'm still getting seizures, what a waste of a scarless head!). Oop. out of Jagermesiter and blackcurrant squash, better get another!

Completed

Transformers: Devastation
Unmechanical
Pneuma
Killzone: Shadow Fall
Killer Instinct
Teslagrad
Defy Gravity
Cibele
Oxenfree
Out There Somewhere

Underway

Xeodrifter
WWE 2K16

12 Weeks, 12 Games, Year 3, Week 2

   Well, looks like I was right, barely anyone read that, and frankly that was probably deserved as it was rushed and pretty thin on the puns, but then again you wouldn't know that without reading it, maybe that says more about what the previous post was, or maybe I'm not as funny as I think i am, hmmm...
    On to week 2 anyway, which would be the week of 9/1- 15/1 if you couldn't figure that out from the dates given before, and just like I said, the first game on this list was half done by the time I got to week 2, but as I'm writing it backwards due to computer issues I might as well do it in one, yeah?

Killzone: Shadow fall

   Wow, I wrote a whole lot of notes on this one, and can read a very small amount of them, off to a good start then. If you haven't heard of Killzone you're not missing out (so I understand). It's PlayStation's flagship FPS series that debuted on PS2 with the only instalment I'd previously played but really made it's name on PS3, it's name of course of being an average FPS, not bad, but it's never going to be challenging COD for any awards, it is enough of a name though to be a launch title for the PS4, which was before I had one and we all know what launch titles tend to be like, Ridge Racer anyone? Anyway, I was in CEX and knew I was going to be starting this 12 weeks, 12 games thing again, and this was £6, so I bought it, and here we are.                                                                                There wasn't a lot of new ideas in this, they sure picked away at other games with the content, but in the end I think they delivered a good game, even 2 years after its release I enjoyed it, despite me saying before I'm bored of Triple A's. Firstly, the actual gameplay, the 'king' if you want to borrow the cliche (as it's the most important thing) is good. It felt good to mow down a bunch of enemies and the AI was intelligent enough to make it a challenge without going crazy with the amount of enemies. I liked the way they did the story too, as a release game it seemed smart to do an individual story in a big series where you didn't have to know the whole plot of the series to understand what was going on, although it seemed like there was more for long term fans too.
   There were some parts I wasn't too keen on though, for one thing, the length of some of the missions. I will say I very much appreciated the 10-12 hours (ish) campaign, but split up in to just 10 missions seemed crazy, especially the the few in the middle that started to drag as you passed the hour and a half marker in 1 area, it might have been more interesting for a bit more variety there. I also wasn't a fan of the spider drones that came in to the game towards the end that you had to hack to open doors, it seems like there's always some silly BS like this in every FPS rather than just letting you carry on shooting stuff, you could at least add something fun like 2D platforming sections (that might just be fun for me though). Map size as well, it annoys me that the whole industry seems to want to make open worlds, or at least areas in this case (similar to Rise of the Tomb Raider (though granted this game came out a long time before)) without even putting anything in there, can't I just do the story? that's all I want from a game about 90% of the time, but it seems like 90% of games keep wanting to force me to do more, whatever happened to optional extras? Rant over (for now).
   Oh yeah, I was trying to make a good news sandwich. The game was fun though despite these criticisms, hey, I can't complain for £6 (sorry Guerilla). If you like FPS' and have a PS4, you can do a lot worse than giving this one a whirl, possibly one of the best launch games I've ever played, but there's not many challengers to that throne

Killer Instinct

    As I'm sure you can tell from the picture above, this is a fighting game, and yes, it is a follow up to that mid 90's game that wasn't very good. For some reason though, Microsoft did a deal and bought it back as sort of a free to play game back at the Xbox Ones' release. Free to play as in you could download and own it, but if you wanted any characters to actually be able to use, you had to pay. Anyway, over 2 years later and after a second cast of characters came out, finally those original 8 came free (with games with Gold at least) and I could give it a go.
   It's much more of a Tekken than a Street Fighter as it's all about 'dem combos as a single hit basically does nothing. It's okay as well, when you find the difficulty mode that's right for you (which for me was 'hard', as medium was really easy then there was a huge step up (especially as in easy the AI basically just stood still)) it can become a fun fighting game. Sure, I probably could have done with playing through the tutorials at the AI got me occasionally with Combo breakers and I didn't have a clue how to execute them, but I made it through. You may be asking what I class as completing this game (probably not, actually) and it was to complete the 'story' (I put in inverted commas as it's just a random assortment of 7 enemies with the boss at the end with no plot other than a subtitled screen at the end) with all 8 characters. I've got a couple of top tips for you here if you wanted to play it more than I cared to. Don't play as Glacier, he's really slow, but do play as Sadira, she's basically Chun Li. It's fine

Teslagrad

   Of all the PS Plus, Games with Gold and 20p Steam purchases I had listed to play during these 12 weeks, this was the one I was looking forward to most. It's exactly what I want from a PS plus game, a 5-6 hour, well reviewed indie game that I would never have played otherwise. It's a puzzle platformer which if you had read what I'd put last year you'd know I can be a big fan of, depending on the quality of course. I wasn't let down.
   You're an orphan caught in a war who escapes in to a giant tower, which happens to be where the king/ emperor/ dictator (I'm not sure) rules from, so you set out to stop him. I think that's the plot anyway, doesn't really mater though. You have to work your way up the tower by unlocking new abilities such as magnetic control and short distance teleporting (and more!). The game does a great job of introducing you gradually to these abilities and as you go along showing you all the things you can do by combing them. The puzzles are the right difficulty level and you get a real sense of power by the time you get to the end.
   My only gripes with the game are, firstly, bosses. I've said I don't like them before but I guess others do, I can't stand them though, the amount of games I've quit because of a frustrating boss (not this one though). The other, a small section of the game about 2/3 of the way in where you have to float up a section of the tower avoiding electrical beams. It's a huge trial and error section (which I don't like at the best of times) that seems to forget all the smart build of the rest of the game and just tries to add another 15 minutes to the game.
   That aside, I really did like it, the best game I'd played so far (up until that point, but at the time of writing it's been replaced). I hope you picked it up last summer for free, because it really does deserve to be played, it's also on Steam, PS3, Vta and Wii U!


 

Completed

Transformers: Devastation
Unmechanical
Pneuma
Killzone: Shadow Fall
Killer Instinct
Teslagrad

Underway

Xeodrifter

12 weeks, 12 games, Year 3

   Numerous things to say before I start. Firstly, I started this on Saturday the 2nd January but due to a broken computer I was unable to turn it in to words, like I am now, that you are reading here. Another thing to say is that I could really do with renaming this as it's more turned in to me getting through my back log of old PS plus and Games with Gold games plus of course my array of 20p Steam games. This is aided by the fact that in general I'm getting bored of long AAA titles now and want shorter games with fresh ideas. The third thing to say is that I'm well aware that the last 2 times I've done this barely anyone read it, so this is essentially becoming me talking to myself now and making references to things that are personal to me. Never mind, Onwards!

Tranformers Devastation

   So, Platinum games and a license is a warning sign before you even start, and I wasn't really a big fan of the cartoon as a kid (which this is based on with the art direction, story and all the voice actors (though unfortunately no wildly varying changing of character sizes)), it always seemed pretty boring. Also, this is one of those fighting games like Devil May Cry or Bayonetta, which I'm neither a big fan of nor particularly good at, yet here was me playing it.
   So, the graphics are disappointing, the story is instantly forgettable and there are sections of awful platforming and yet still I enjoyed the game as a whole. It was a very simple example of a combo fighting game, but due to its simplicity it makes it way more fun (to me at least) than any of the games of this type I've ever played before (pretty much all named earlier). As I'm getting older I'm becoming a lazier gamer (and just lazier in general) and I'm not going to be learning massive button combos, but when there are about 3 combos to learn, of 3 buttons or so then great, I can cope with that (I think). The main issue it the very slow start to the game, it's a short game anyway (like, 5 hours or so) but the second half of the game is far better than the first, and sure, I know that goes for most games that the second half of games is better as you get more used to the systems and so on, but this game is definitely a game of two halves (and no, I'm not talking about every Villa match this last couple of months (as for some reason we don't start trying until the second half)).
   It's cheap anyway but give it a chance and some time and you'll enjoy it, trust me

Unmechanical

   And so on to the masses of free games I've got sitting around, this one was a PS Plus game from some point last year and is a 2D puzzle game, although not a platformer. You play a little floating dude with a tractor beam with some pretty standard puzzles to solve. It's nothing new and only a couple of hours long and forgettable, but as it was free I enjoyed it enough for its brief length. The main issue that I have is that at times it can be a bit too much style over substance and it's hard to tell what's background and what's part of the game, and once made me look around for 5 minutes for a vital puzzle piece only to realise I kept passing it thinking it wasn't involved. As I said, it's all been done before, but it got me some easy trophies (though I'm more of an achievements guy) and passed a couple of hours. It's fine for what it is (provided what it is, is that you got it free).

Xeodrfiter

   Like Megaman? great, play this. I, however have never played a single Megaman game and was thusly terrible at this. I know in the past I've talked of my love of 2D platformers but I'm not a big fan of guns in them, like Megaman (sorry I keep talking about Megaman but it seems like the most obvious comparison). So, it's a simple platformer with 4 slightly different planets that you have to travel between (which you can do at will (sort of)) to unlock different abilities to advance in the game. It's only a couple of hours long (or so everyone else seems to think, after 3 hours I wasn't even half way though due to many, many deaths)for experienced players. Yes, I haven't finished this game so it will go on to the 'underway' list although the chances of me finishing are very low as I got very stuck on the fourth boss, and I'd have to do it many more times as the same boss is repeated every time but with a different move added and more health, and I can't get past the current iteration.

Pneuma

   From 2 PS Plus games on to a Game with gold. This is a first person puzzle game that has some good ideas but is unfortunately not executed very well. It's all about the eyes that look at you and figuring out how that effects the world around you. In theory it's a good, and fresh idea, but some poor controls, unclear puzzles and repetition leaves it somewhat disappointing. It's a shame too as it looks really good and I'm a big fan of fresh ideas, but between these issues, and the annoying voice over that, yet again, discovers he's a fictional character in a game, which seems to happen all the time these days and I'm sick of it. Anyway, point is, of all the games I've mentioned here, I would definitely say this is the one you can leave off from playing, even though it gave me some easy Acheivment points.

   I also played about half of Killzone: Shadowfall that week, but finished in the second week, so I'll write about it then. Hopefully by the time week 4 is out I'll be back up to date as at the moment Week 3 is nearly over and I've forgotten half the stuff from the games and, as usual, can't read my own hand written notes because I write like a 5 year old.

Completed

Transformers: Devastation
Unmechanical
Pneuma

Underway

Xeodrifter

Game of the Year 2015

   I'm back to write about vidoegames, the thing that no one reads about when I do so. I've been unable to do this properly over the last few months due to my condition (read previous post) and return to work and all Christmas stuff. Obviously I had to come back for this though, the all important award of Andrew Pearsall's game of the year (what could me more important?). Who can take the reigns from 2014's winner South Park the Stick of Truth and of course the inaugural winner The Last of us. Let's find out (as I also haven't decided yet whilst writing this).

The Nominee's are:

Rise of The Tomb Raider

   If you were to think Fallout 4 was the best game that came out on November 13th you would be very wrong. It is this. Granted not many people played it due to some foolishness on Square Enix and Microsoft's part for making it an Xbox exclusive and releasing it on the same day as the aforementioned Fallout 4. On to the game itself though. If you played the first game in the rebooted Tomb Raider series (which is more likely) you'll know what the deal is here, this is just better. It's an action game that involves a bit of everything, sneaking, hunting, shooting, platforming and probably the best action cut scene moments I've ever played (suck it Tomb Raider copycat Uncharted). Everything works so well though, there's not a bad part in the game, it all runs great, it's so much fun to play. There's plenty more to do as well, such as the returning Challenge tombs from the first game as well as repayable challenge runs outside of the story if you want to play more. Yet again it's beautiful and Lara is a fantastic character and brilliantly acted/ mo capped. My only issue with the game would have to be the open area sections of the game, I really didn't want them there. Can't we just have 8-14 hour story driven games that don't make you do extra stuff. I don't need it.
   I would probably say this is my favourite action game of all time, beating the likes of Uncharted 2, Assassins Creed 2 and the other games I've probably forgotten. On the unlikelihood you have an Xbox One, you have to get this game, if not, wait a year, It'll come to Playstation eventually.


Rocket League

   Car football. The 8 year old version of me playing a version of Subbuteo with toy cars by myself would have lost his shit, and frankly, I have. A game that I might not have played had it not been free on PS plus, but it was and it's probably the most addictive game I've ever played (granted I've said that hundreds of times before (I imagine)). It's as simple as it sounds, 2 teams of cars, from 1 v 1 up to 4 v 4, 1 Ball, 2 goals. There's boosts to pick up and jumps and flips, it's simple to pick up but difficult to master (like many good games). It does have a single player season mode but it's true home is online multiplayer. If this game had come out 5 years ago when me and my friends spent hundreds of hours playing Call of Duty and Fifa online it would have taken over my world, but those days have passed, We've all grown up (though that mostly applies to everyone else and not me) and we can rarely get together at the same time to play online (plus we don't all have the same systems).
   Playing online can be a mixed bag at times, oftentimes someone in the game has lag, plus without communicating with your team it's hard to put moves together, but many players seem to figure it out. Of course, the game does suffer from the same issue that every online game suffers from, some people online are arseholes, unfortunately there's not much anyone can do about that, but as long as you chill out there's no need to worry, ignore them, just like always. I'm making this sound pants now but rest assured it's anything but. What's greater than putting in a great performance and leaving your team to victory whilst the losers moan about each other? Quality.


Chroma Squad

   Keeping on the indie front, I'll move on to a not very well known game. Chroma Squad is a turn based strategy game (Xcom style) based on a Power Rangers style. The story is brilliantly crazy. You start as the director of the Chroma Squad TV show, picking your cast, character names and uniforms. You begin to film the shows but over the course of 6 seasons (#nomovie) shit becomes real and you have to save the Earth. I don't want to go in to details because the story really is great (plus it involves story changing decisions so we probably won't have the same story anyway).
   My only real issue with the game is that I couldn't finish it. I hit a bug on the final boss and could not complete the game. I was going to restart it over but just watched the ending on Youtube instead. I should say the gamely is good too, it's strategic without being too complicated as the story is the most important thing going on here. Extra abilities and moves are slowly put in throughout the game but give you every change to master them and it's got some neet little RPG elements mixed in too. It's only on Steam but only costs £6.79 as of writing. Buy it now!

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

   I've not put as many hours in to any story game since Fallout 3 (I recon) as I did in this. Sure, there aren't as many things to discover and the area isn't so big as there is in an Elder scrolls game but the story is so deep and engaging that it doesn't matter. That's not to say there isn't anything else to do, there are plenty of random events to encounter and of course Witcher contracts to complete, and Gwent of course, which is even more addictive than Pokemon cards, and I actually understand Gwent too.
   There is a nicely varied world to travel, and for such a big game it really does look fantastic. There's a wealth of different types of enemies to fight and it's fun to change the fighting style against different types of enemies you encounter rather than them all being samey. This is the only game on this list I already reviewed so there's more there.


And the Winner is...

It's a tough one, there has been a lot of great games, including ones not making the shortlist (metal gear 5 springs to mind), with two all time greats (in my eyes anyway). But for me the winner has to be Rocket League, it's sucked me back in for a second time and I'm obsessed again. Congratulations.