Quantum Break

   A big Xbox exclusive release from last week, a time travelling third person action game, that's what it is, and here's what I think.
   Before I even talk about the game I've got to mention the TV episode portion of the game, which has been much talked about the past couple of years since it was first revealed. Between each of the 5 acts of the game there is a 20-30 minute filmed episode based slightly on decisions you have made. There's some actual actors in there as well like X men's Ice man, Little finger, that scrawny one off lost and not Idris Alba (it's not racist, they're both in the Wire). Obviously their likenesses are then made in to the video game characters as well and it makes it seem weird at times to be playing a game as a recognisable actor and trying to kill other recognisable actors. I don't necessarily have a problem with the idea of acted sections but it feels really off putting to me to see the same characters and locations from the game in real life, with the sets not really matching the detail in the game.
   I have to talk about Remedy (the developer) because I don't have a good history with them. I really wasn't that keen on Alan Wake despite how many other gamers seemed to love it. Wow, this woman on Tipping point just thought the second world war started in 1914... The only Max Payne I'd played was 3, which wasn't made by them I'll give you, but it was their original series and according to the ultimate source of nowledge, Wikipedia, they oversaw development, I wasn't a big fan of that either.
   I'm pretty sure I've mentioned in the past my lack of interest in 3rd person action games as well. Why did I play this? Well, I'm beginning to wonder now. The shooting sections are okay, it's fun to be able to use your time abilities to defeat enemies but from about half way in the enemies are immune to most of them and it turns in to a pretty standard shooter. Then there's the platfroming sections. Every part of every act (or so it felt) had a section something like 'the door is locked, however shall we get in?' so you have to jump up a bunch of conveniently placed skips, portable toilets, cranes, trains, automobiles and so on, which doesn't control well. This is a mild frustration at the start but when sections come in where you need to use time control abilities to not get crushed at the same time it becomes very laborious and nearly (in my case) controller smashing. Wow, that woman went through as well.

   Before I go any further I should same the game looks fantastic, just like every game in this genre seems to, although as previously mentioned it feels weird looking like the actors . She got through to the head to head now, I might be able to win on this! It's also a 10-12 hour single player game, which is what I crave now that I don't have all the free time I used to. The story then. I'm going to try and avoid spoilers past act 1, but we'll see. Essentially, your friend creates a time machine, goes back to 1999, creates an evil corporation who are indifferent to the fact that time will stop forever despite that they could stop it and you have to save the universe yourself (with your brother, a couple of security experts and a protester). The story is okay, no real complaints but for a game that seems like it's put more time in to style than substance you'd think the story would be fantastic, but it isn't. Well acted though, as you'd expect. There is also the unnecessary story stretch that seems to turn up in all media now where you finally get to your target after hours of searching only to realise you've left your hob on or something so a whole act is spent going back to fix that. Just because it seems to happen in everything now that's not an excuse for lazy storytelling.
   So, if you like third person action and style in games this may be for you, or maybe if you see something in Remedy games that I don't, but for me, average gun play and terrible platforing makes a disappointing game. 5/10. Ha, she lost, stupid bitch.

12 weeks, 12 games, year 3, week 12

  Another extra week late again, don't worry though, I did stop 2 weeks ago to meet my self imposed rule. It's over at last, I can stop having to check how long a game is before I start it for this little read blog, Oh the life I lead. It's going out with a whimper as well, didn't even finish

Broken Age

   It's a Tim Schafer adventure game. If that means nothing to you, think Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Maniac Mansion, Grim Fandango (chachalala) and you get the idea. Now, adventure games really aren't my bag, walking around clicking on everything until something works isn't my idea of a great time, but it was a PS plus game a few months ago and I heard it was good, so I gave it a go. This game was originally released in 2 parts, you may wonder why am I saying this, but you'll see. Spoilers are coming.
   The first few hours were pretty damn good, I was really enjoying it, didn't have to use a guide (unusually for me and adventure games) and the story was building nicely. One boy, living on a spaceship being overly parented but with no where to go, meanwhile a separate story about a girl living in a town trying to escape her fate as a potential victim for an honoured monster feeding. Obviously the 2 stories combine, but I don't want to spoil it too much for you (I probably will though). I do like how you can switch between story at any time, so you can mix it up a bit or if you get stuck, step away to the other character for a while and come back fresh (or you could just turn the game off and come back later I guess). Things start to kick off, the boy is encouraged by a stow away bad wolf to help 'rescue' beings, while the girl wants to kill the monster that everyone worships. Stuff goes wrong though, and the boy and girl end up swapping places.
   That is where the story kicks up a gear and the original second part of the game begins. It's also where the game gets much harder. The puzzles seem much less intuitive and I got to a point where I was just word for word following a guide, and though the story was really interesting, I began to wonder why I was bothering to play essentially a puzzle game by reading what all the solutions were. I did that for a couple of hours, determined to get through it (because of this blog), then finding out there was another 3-4 hours of this, so I stopped. I can always just find a video of the story (not that I have yet). If you're a lover of puzzle games then you may be better at figuring this out than I was, then again, you'd probably already have played it. So, unfinished in the end, but I still made over the 12 game aim.
   Sorry, that was a pretty poor one. I might do a look back at this like I did last year, but it seems more likely that I'll write something about Quantum break (2 weeks late) which I'm going to be starting now. And, GO!

Completed

Transformers: Devastation
Unmechanical
Pneuma
Killzone: Shadow Fall
Killer Instinct
Teslagrad
Defy Gravity
Cibele
Oxenfree
Out There Somewhere
Breath of Death VII
WWE 2K16
Gears of War 3
The Deed
Her Story
Gauntlet
Xcom 2
Woolfe - The red hood diaries
Firewatch
Saturday Morning RPG
Far Cry Primal
Broforce

Incomplete

Xeodrifter
Broken Age

12 weeks, 12 games, year 3, week 11

   whoops, fogot to post this a week ago! I've noticeably slowed down, I'm well aware of that. I've swapped Pro Evo for Fifa so I've been playing a lot of that to get up to a level of ability where I can blast past opponents on line (don't worry, I've reached it). Add to that House of cards and my general lack of energy so I've slowed to a crawl. Thankfully, I've already met my self imposed target of 12 games (as if anyone cares) so I'm done really, but there's weeks to fill and a lack of ideas to blog about. Anyway, 1 this week

Broforce

   This one is a retro looking side scrolling 2D platfromer (my favourite) with guns (or maybe not). It's based on 80's action movies with a tongue in cheek take on many of those heroes (or villains). Comparisons to Super time force are easy, so there will be many. That was also a retro looking run and gun platformer based on action movies, which I preferred to Broforce frankly, but there is enough in here to make it fun on it's own terms. I do like the fully destructible environments I must say. You can tunnel underneath enemies to get by easily, or use the environment as a weapon. The characters are varied as well. The different weapons are useful in different situations, even the one that, up until that point had been useless (the one that shoots below) turned out to be an awesome weapon against the final boss. I like how you get the extra lives too, rescuing POW's off the level, which will then change you to another character, which can add a tactical level to the game, as you may already have the perfect character for the environment, so do you gamble your character on that extra life. Oh, character's are randomly selected btw, probably should have said that earlier.
   It plays well, is fun and lighthearted, so why don't I like it as much as Super Time Force? For one, there's definitely the element of I played that before (scroll back down here a couple of years to see thoughts) so that set the standard for this (as far as I know) 2 game genre. Also, bosses. I know, I go on and on about my dislike of bosses, but that's because it's a big thing for me. I probably spent as long trying to defeat the penultimate boss than I had the entire game up to that point. I red the final boss was a nightmare as well, so considered giving up, but no, I fought on and didn't even break a controller (nearly though). Thankfully, turned out the final boss was nowhere near as hard as the Internet told me. After the 3-4 hours I probably spent on the previous boss, I knocked this mofo out in 10-15 mins. Youtubers are idiots.
   My advice, if you have a PS4, it's on PS plus right now, get it and play it. It's one of those where I probably wouldn't recommend paying for it, or not at full price anyway (Steam sales come around frequently enough if you're a PC gamer), but for free, I enjoyed it enough.

Completed

Transformers: Devastation
Unmechanical
Pneuma
Killzone: Shadow Fall
Killer Instinct
Teslagrad
Defy Gravity
Cibele
Oxenfree
Out There Somewhere
Breath of Death VII
WWE 2K16
Gears of War 3
The Deed
Her Story
Gauntlet
Xcom 2
Woolfe - The red hood diaries
Firewatch
Saturday Morning RPG
Far Cry Primal
Broforce

Underway

Xeodrifter

Should probably remove Xeodrifter now, it's never going to happen, and I don't just mean this last week, I mean ever.

12 weeks, 12 games, year 3, weeks 9 & 10

   Yes, a twoffer. I was playing a game that took over a week and the last time I split one game over 2 weeks (see last year and Wolfenstein the new order) I barely had anything to say in the second week, so I figured better to leave it a week and do it all in one. And that game is...

Far Cry Primal

    I already have good vibes towards far cry games, as 3 and 4 were some of my favourite shooters of the last few years (though I feel 2 is shockingly overrated as the road corner outposts re spawn enemies as soon as you turn your back) so I had mixed feelings going in here. On one hand, I knew Far Cry was always good, on the other, doing something different could be a mistake (no, I never played Blood Dragon), but, on the third hand, as I've been talking a lot about during these 10 weeks, I'm getting pretty fed up of the same games over and over and over and over (continue for another 50 lines) again, so it is refreshing to see a different take on a well established game, even if it is a risk. In my eyes, it paid off, I loved it.
   Obviously I feel Far Cry is a good basis to start a spin off on, as they've always been fantastic to play and really invented (or at least perfected) the free roaming FPS. I also appreciate how they've not gone to the oh so overdone Dinosaur route and have stuck to cavemen, sabre tooth Tigers (not involving Tommy Oliver), Mammoths, Beavers and so on. All the classic Far cry exploring, side quests, forts, question marks (?), levelling up, weapon upgrading and so forth are all there to give the feeling of a far cry game while the game play is quite the opposite. No shooting, of course, but the bow and arrow remains, although without many of the bells and whistles (and scopes) that it had been appearing with in recent Far Crys. The bow and arrow works well though along with it's melee focused new friends of the spear and the club (though you can throw them). Of course there is a (questionable) excuse to include grenades in the form of 'bee bombs' (essentially throwing a bee hive), 'beserker bomb'(a poison bomb that turns enemies against each other) and a 'fire bomb' (not sure how cave men made them), plus 'not shurikens' in the form of 'throwing shards' (throw sharp bits of rock) and beserker shard (pretty much the same as the beserker bomb). They're the weapons you're handed, add to that your tamed beast of choice and you're all set to take on the land of killer animals and feuding clans. The plot is very week, there isn't really a story beyond having to take out your 2 rival tribes. There isn't an ending to go with it either, just millions of quests of plenty of different variety to do, but I figured beating the leaders of both rival tribes is essentially it.
   I would definitely recommend this one, especially if like me you like far cry and also, if like me, you're itching for something different. There is another AAA cave man game in 'Wild' coming out later this year but Far Cry beat it out the traps, and comes with a name attachment that I personally trust in. There could be hundred of hours in this if you want me to be, but I had defeated the enemy tribes and completed all the big side quests in about 25 (while also spending time getting specific animal pelts and types of wood (not as boring as it sounds)).

   I've started Bro force, but if I write about that now not only will I be a hypocrite (in my own eyes at least) but I'll also have nothing to write about next week

Completed

Transformers: Devastation
Unmechanical
Pneuma
Killzone: Shadow Fall
Killer Instinct
Teslagrad
Defy Gravity
Cibele
Oxenfree
Out There Somewhere
Breath of Death VII
WWE 2K16
Gears of War 3
The Deed
Her Story
Gauntlet
Xcom 2
Woolfe - The red hood diaries
Firewatch
Saturday Morning RPG
Far Cry Primal

Underway

Xeodrifter
Broforce

12 weeks, 12 games, year 3, week 8

   Back to running behind again, been shattered from work and stuff. I'm ready to go now though, I've eaten my chips, got my tea and my Aston Villa 97-98 season review tape (not enough Lee Hendrie) and I'm set. I've not actually played any games for this list (as Rocket League isn't really completable, and if it was, it would have been finished a long time ago) since about Wednesday last week (which is inclusive in week 8), Far cry Primal is waiting to be started but it seems like an effort. Maybe tonight I'll make a start. Point is, I probably won't write one at the end of this week as it's unlikely I'll have finished by then, or even got very far. Oh, there's Lee Hendrie scoring just now (in 1997).

Firewatch

      Wow, old channel 5 Uefa cup coverage was terrible. This game though, is great. It's a 'walking simulator' (as the genre has unfortunately been branded despite games such as gone home, the Stanley parable and so many more being so great) where you shrug off your mentally ill wife to live in the woods and keep an eye peeled for any fires. The main part of the game is the relationship between your character and your boss who you talk to on a walkie talkie. The relationship is very much down to you, you can communicate as much, or as little as you want (well, you have to talk 6 times) and be as nice or mean as you want. Ooh, there's a lovely feature on this tape about our away game against Athletico Madrid, strolling around a field, Dwight Yorke getting held up at the airport, Gareth Southgate chatting shit and so on.
   The only problem I found in the game was the other story in the game, I just didn't care about the guy I replaced or his son. It's overlookable (that's one word, right?) though because of the great character relationship, and of course the gorgeous world that there is to explore. It's about 3-4 hours long but you can add more time if you want to explore all the nooks and crannies, finding tortoises and so on, but that is about the perfect length for me anyway. It didn't seem like I missed much not finding many of the extras, it might be just a nice bit of icing on top. If you like story based games with little actual gameplay (which I do, that wasn't supposed to be sarcastic criticism) then this is definitely worth picking up.

Saturday Morning RPG

 

   If one thing can be said about John Gregory, it's that he knew how to get the 'best' out of Julian Joachim. I heard about this game a while ago and then I noticed it was 60p on the Steam lunar sale, so I went for it. It's a very simple RPG that's split in to separate episodes (as if it were a TV series (also, they weren't all released at once but over time)) like a kids cartoon. It's very 80's themed, with so many references that I can't even. Turns out though, the last episode was never completed for whatever reason so it left me on a cliffhanger. The game itself is fine, it's a basic RPG with the main attraction all the humour and references. The weapons you pick up are all based on something, like the Simon Says machine where you have to complete the sequence to do your attack, or the single glove that deals out a Moon Walk slap. There's scratch and sniffs that boost your stats and 80's movie tie-ins all over the place.
   Gameplay wise it's fine, it's nothing new. It reminds me in many ways of South Park the stick of truth, in that it's a simple but funny light RPG. It's nowhere near as good as South Park mind you, but it was fun for what it was Might have helped if I were about 5 yers older though, it's really for kids of the 80's. For 60p, get it. For full price? depends how much you like the 80's (or RPG's). Can we get Ian Taylor back in the Villa team?

   Right, time to start Far Cry Primal, maybe.

Completed

Transformers: Devastation
Unmechanical
Pneuma
Killzone: Shadow Fall
Killer Instinct
Teslagrad
Defy Gravity
Cibele
Oxenfree
Out There Somewhere
Breath of Death VII
WWE 2K16
Gears of War 3
The Deed
Her Story
Gauntlet
Xcom 2
Woolfe - The red hood diaries
Firewatch
Saturday Morning RPG

Underway

Xeodrifter

12 weeks, 12 games, year 3, week 7

   Back out of time again, just the way I like it. I'm not going to stick to anyone's schedule though, especially not my own. If I had to do such a thing there's no way I'd be able to sleep for 12 hours, get up at 2pm, then be back in bed by 5, living the dream.

   Xcom 2

   So, I meant to take my own screenshots of this, and indeed all games on Steam as it's pretty easy to do that. I haven't though, I forget. Moving on from where I left off though I was getting towards the end of the game, which picked the momentum back up again, at least it felt that way to me. Firstly, it got harder again. I was getting concerned that I was breezing through the game after I'd set it to easy but towards the last 5-10 missions, I failed a couple of missions and was losing at least 2 soldiers a fight, which lead me in to the final mission with only really 3 squad members worthy of being in the fight (out of 7). Secondly, more story missions. I cared so much more when the mission was actually important or counted towards the advent. When I was trying to do some research or gather some intel then I'd be flashed up with some annoying guerrilla mission, urgh... just let me get on with it!
   Point is, the last few missions were a real pick up at the end of the game and left me with a warm and happy feeling when the credits rolled, where I might not have felt that without those last few. Only problem I had with the ending is, even though it showed some stats throughout the game, they weren't comprehensive enough for me, I do love stats. Overall opinion though is that it was a really good game, but as I'm finding more and more these days, wasn't all that much of an improvement on the 2012 original, so I'll most likely be ending my interaction with this series here, much like I am with so many these days as sequels seem to be becoming rehashed stories of old games that are of little substantial difference. This is a deeper worry for me that I wish to go in to right here, but the future of games is not looking bright to me. That's one for another time though.

Woolfe - The Red Hood Diaries

   Picked up on the cheap on the Steam lunar sale after I'd put it on my wish list some time ago for a reason I'm not sure of, as the average review was thumb across, whereas I'm more of a thumbs up guy (though if I should know anything by now, it's don't trust people). Anyway, bought it now. It's a twist on the little red riding hood fair tail and I was hoping that I'd be able to compare it to Alice: Madness returns, which was a great game (and a twist on a fairlytale). A problem though, this game was not great, or good, or average. It was bad. Style over substance all over the place. It looks great, I'll give it that, but the story was nothing, the gameplay simple and buggy, and the 3D platforming so silly you could jump off the front of the screen like some 1995 PS1 launch game (that's the right year, right?). Point is not much to say really, don't play it, it's bad. Sorry. Under any other circumstances I wouldn't have finished it, but I've done it for this under the foreknowledge that it was short, for no sensible reason. I guess you can trust people after all.

   I've played Firewatch now btw, but technically it's in week 8, so nothing there yet, despite the fact that I'll probably remember it better now than I will come whenever I actually come to write it. Where to go next though? Far cry primal looks very interesting and is out this week, I already have Just Cause 3 staring at me from my shelf and the Witness looks awesome. I don't know which to go with, granted I'll probably play them all eventually, but probably not within these 12 weeks (as they're all big games and this tends to be for shorter games). Quick one this week, things to do (not really, more laziness), for now though...

Completed

Transformers: Devastation
Unmechanical
Pneuma
Killzone: Shadow Fall
Killer Instinct
Teslagrad
Defy Gravity
Cibele
Oxenfree
Out There Somewhere
Breath of Death VII
WWE 2K16
Gears of War 3
The Deed
Her Story
Gauntlet
Xcom 2
Woolfe - The red hood diaries

Underway

Xeodrifter

12 weeks, 12 games, year 3, weeks 6.

   Ah, half way. Before I go on to this weeks games, I've got to look to the future, and beyond the games I talked about last week (Witness, Far Cry, Just Cause). Turns out this week both Unravel and Firewatch came out to much aplomb. That's 2 games almost perfect for this as they're small contained games and both very good (or so I read). On top of that there was a Steam sale last week so I picked up a few games on there as well (most excitingly (for me anyway) Saturday morning RPG for 66p after I was going to pay £5 for it, deal of the week!). Plus of course The division is out in a few weeks (though I've not made a decision on that yet) and however many other potentially dozens of games that will leap out at me and not forgetting PS Plus and Games with gold of course. Where is the time supposed to come from?

Xcom 2

   After so much excitement it finally arrived, but of course it was always going to be difficult to live up to all the hype I was giving it. So first things first, I'm terrible at this. I got about 10 hours in at great pains and got well and truly stuck. I will be the first to admit that strategy games aren't my forte, the first game in this series (the 2008 re-boot, not the 1992 original) was the first turn based strategy game I ever played for more than an hour, and I loved it. Since then I've played the likes of Chroma Squad, massive chalice, X-Com enemy within and maybe more so I figured I'd be pretty good at it by now, but no. When I look back at it now I remember how difficult I found the original but I'd forgotten that before I picked this up.
   Point was though that I restarted it on easy. I realised which upgrades I should be picking and made all the right decisions and started flying through, so much so in fact hat it seemed too easy. However, It has got more challenging now so I've been proven correct about restarting because I assume it would have gotten impossible for me when I'd gotten to this stage on medium. There is a major issue with restarting though and that's the added time. If howlongtobeat.com is to be believed (as I often do) I should've finished by now with the combined play time. You might wonder why this is annoying me but I'll tell you. As touched upon a few weeks ago I'm starting to enjoy shorter games more and longer games with a constantly repeating gameplay loop get boring to me after a few hours. I'm now at a stage where every random encounter that pops up while I'm trying to do some research is like a hot poker in my buttocks. I was enjoying it, I really was, now though, I'm bored.
   Oh right, what is it? Turned based strategy where you have to reclaim the Earth from alien invaders who have taken over (like the NWO). To do this you have to find gear, research upgrades and budget manage. It's some tricky resource management to say the least as there's constantly something you want and as soon as you've got one thing you want, another 3 pop up that you want, and then a UFO crash lands and you have to recover it which drags you away. There is a lot to do, arguably too much all in 1 go. You get the point I hope. As I said, I was loving it but got bored after 30 or so hours (It could be argued I could play it less intensely than 30 hours in 6 days but, meh). If you're more patient than me then get it, but be warned, it's a long one (again).

   I finished Gauntlet as well btw. That winded up being alright while having half of my attention elsewhere on music, podcasts or whatever. That last boss though, my God. Yet again, I hate bosses, always have, and this one took multiple playthoughs that got infuriating. I managed to snatch a win from the jaws of defeat when I was about to die. Thankfully it's over now though but it left a sour taste from a game I'd enjoyed up to that point.
   That was it for this week though, we'll see how Xcom goes, see which of the Steam games I potentially start or maybe one of the others mentioned in the first paragraph, we shall see.

Completed

Transformers: Devastation
Unmechanical
Pneuma
Killzone: Shadow Fall
Killer Instinct
Teslagrad
Defy Gravity
Cibele
Oxenfree
Out There Somewhere
Breath of Death VII
WWE 2K16
Gears of War 3
The Deed
Her Story
Gauntlet

Underway

Xeodrifter
Xcom 2