I just finished playing...

Far Cry 3 Steam page
Requires a UPlay account

Far Cry 4 Steam page
Incorporates 3rd-party DRM: Uplay Account Required
 
Far Cry 4

So I bought and finished the game. Gameplay was pretty good and I really like the hook and buzzer! Apart the new hook use and buzzer Far Cry 3 was better in every aspect, but not by much. As I wrote earlier about not caring about the story that much was true, this games story was really bad and boring. Characters were super boring and unmemorable apart Willis Huntley(you bastard!). I played the game with Hardcore diff which made too challenging to sneak so I decided to attack bases with guns blazing!

Shangri-La mission were cool!

Rating= 6/10 (-1 because the is no Blood Dragon 2!!!!!)
 
I've had Journey for a while, but never had a 2 hour window to just play it.

I played it today, by all accounts I was supposed to question my life, kill myself and change career... And maybe find a unicorn.

None of these things happened, it was very very pretty. :|
 
Life Is Strange ep5, and therefore the whole series.

It seems to be splitting popular opinion. I'd say I'm rather torn as well but can't deny that it's a big game in the feels department. For me it had a good ending and the journey there was a rollercoaster of emotions.

It's so weird how such a low budget, small team project like LIS can have such a big impact on (my view of) the gaming scene. It's not the best game ever or probably even this year, but it definitely waves the flag for games that are produced from the hearts of the developers.
 
SBK Generations (2012)

I just finished playing SBK Generations which was really good RR simulation game. Some years ago I played the MotoGP 07 and this was huge improvement from that. Careet mode consists 4 seasons from 2009 season to 2012 season. I started from Superstock 1000 then world supersport and last 2 two seasons in SBK-class. I did choose to use the whole weekends, which includes 2 practice sessions , qualy and race (two in SBK). I were playing with the setup quite a lot, because otherwise I used my tyres too fast or couldnt keep up with some AI's. You can use the help of an engineer, which makes finding the good setup easier than by yourself. You can say to him something like "bike is unstable exiting corners" and the engineer has an solution for that. Sometimes engineers help works and sometimes not which is just like in reality.

I have been watching SBK for years now and I have always been wondering how the bikes differ from another. From my experience from the game (2009-2012 SBK-class bikes):

  • Honda is really good in the wet, but slow in dry
  • BMW is a fast bike, but s**t under braking
  • Kawa is very mediocre (didnt try the 2012 model, which should be good)
  • Suzuki is very average too
  • Yamaha is good everywhere (left SBK at the end of 2010).
  • Aprilia is rocket on straights and pretty good elsewhere too
  • Ducati is just damn good in corners, even thought it is a bit slow in straights. My favourite!


Superstock 1000's are somewhat close to street bikes so they are pretty slow and heavy in corners. Supersports are fun! Really easy to ride and super fast on corners but obviously not so fast on straights. Game has the old bikes like Fogarthys Ducati or Edward's Honda too. It was fun to try keep up new SBK bike with an 2002 RC51. All in all it was really good fun for the time I put into playing it. I wont propably play it again, but will look into a newer RR-games in the future.

My rating= 8/10
 
Grow Home

This was free on Plus a couple of months back and it was fucking unplayable. I have never seen screen-tearing like this. :mad:

It was patched and they fixed it, this game is adorable. I have all the trophies (No platinum) it's only a 3 hour game, but it was really really fun. By the end you're abilities are amazing compared to the slow grind at the start. Unfortunately i've done everything and theres no reason to go back, I wish this had 5 worlds as I want to keep going.
 
I installed the original Dungeon Keeper on DosBox. Damn that is a fun game.
 
The Witcher: Director's Cut Enhanced Edition. 36 hours.

Based on reviews and player comments I had high expectations and was waiting for a classic game experience, among the best RPGs out there. It turned out to be painfully mediocre.
  • Mission design doesn't fit a game without a proper fast travel mechanism. (Run to A, run to B, run to A again, run to rest point to change to night map, run to B again, change map again, run to A to complete mission - time spent questing: 3 minutes, time spent holding W: 20 minutes)
  • Speaking of missions, they aren't that interesting. The plot is fun to see unravel. The missions are dull (go here kill this, go there speak to that, go somewhere and kill some more). Side quests are often as dull and sometimes the lowest kind of RPG garbage you can imagine (collect 5 magical stones, run around placing said stones in 5 totems, something appears that you have to kill).
  • Mystery missions literally require wiki'ing unless the player enjoys some more running around TRYING EVERYTHING. It's particularly bad if you miss a codex entry or a book that briefly appeared at some point.
  • Combat system is the worst I've ever seen in any RPG. Literally "click when cursor lights up, wait, click again when cursor lights up". In combat, stun and hit-chains are incredibly overpowered and make the combat seem always unfair, either in your favor or the enemy's. Bosses are just more hitpoints and stun you more. Key fights just have more enemies.
  • Weapon flavor system (steel sword, silver sword, axe) is interesting but ends up clunky more than beneficial. It's annoying to have to switch weapons all the time. Changing weapons is not as fast as some of the fights would require it to be in order to execute the fight perfectly. Overall I'd just prefer a single weapon with optional drawbacks/buffs towards men/monsters.
  • Character controls are horrendously clunky. Dodging only serves to confuse the character when I actually just want to strafe quickly. Also, strafing as we know it doesn't exist. Transitions between directions are the opposite of smooth. Can't jump. Often got stuck on terrain.
  • Autosave is too lazy in big open areas (goodbye 30 minutes of gameplay back when I met my first hostile Wyvern in the Swamp).
  • Speaking of a map, the maps and locations are recycled almost as bad as Dragon Age II. Worst offender: Swamp Cavern which I recall hosting at least 3 different quest targets. A lot of quests in this game, nowhere near enough terrain to make it interesting.
  • Recycling of character models. Key characters across the game sometimes use literally the same model with the same textures. Minor characters do it ALL THE TIME. It's so weird and unconvincing to see the character you just learned during the last hour, become someone totally different in the next map/house/quest/whatever. I understand it for voice actors but they did it for character models!
  • Inventory is TINY. After about 50% completion, it has to hold so many books/scrolls/runes/potions/valuables that at any random point during questing, there's hardly 3-5 free slots for loot.
  • Speaking of loot, there isn't any. For the first 75% of the game, all containers contain crap, 99.9% of enemies drop crap. No armor drops at all. Weapon drops are always worse than yours. Even mission loot is mostly useless. Looking to gain some cool equipment from dungeoneering? Tough luck, the reward is always just a pitiful amount of gold, maybe gems/valuables and food. Towards the endgame the loot starts being useful but then it's too late. I literally finished the game in the starting armor. There was one opportunity to buy a marginally better armor that would've cost 5000 gold of my 6000 gold saved from missions until that point. The evolution of character equipment in this is almost nonexistent compared to like Elder Scrolls or Dragon Age.
  • Character skilling system pretty much railroaded me for at least the first half of the game since there's so little opportunity to advance and increasing Geralt's toughness is so critical. It's also caused by the copper/silver/gold skillpoint system. I had plenty of points I couldn't put into anything useful since it was the wrong tier.

Overall it feels like they just about had the resources to make a 7-hour linear FPS game but made a 35+ hour sprawling fantasy RPG instead. The pain of that low production value is just everywhere.

But, it's a very mature game thematically, visually and also the way it's been written. The visual and sound design are pretty likeable. When the game was new it obviously wasn't an established video game series yet, and being based on literary works, the background of it is more substantial than average. I guess this is why it remains a classic. It's certainly not for any great gamey qualities.

I'll check out the DLC and then head off to The Witcher 2...
 
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The Talos Principle. Had an eye on it for a while, since the demo was released about a year ago, and now it was on Steam sale, so... ;)

It's basically a puzzle game where you have to place boxes on buttons, redirect light beams to open gates etc. The puzzles themselves are really nicely designed, and there are plenty of them. So if you're into that kind of thing, this alone makes it worth the price. But what adds a real flavour is the "world" where this is happening. It's kinda like Portal, the game is about puzzles, but there is a narrative with a solid story. Here the theme is heavily existentially philosophical, and it really draws you in. I don't want to say too much, because I started with zero knowledge about the game myself, and it was really fun to gradually discover what was it all about. Spent most of christmas days on it, and loved every minute, as far as this genre is concerned, it's a 10/10 for me.
 
Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection (The first three Uncharted games remastered for the PS4).
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I didn't play the originals on PS3 so my views are coming from only playing the PS4 versions.

The first game, Drake's Fortune, is where the series got started and it shows. The environments are quite plain which really shows the age of this game and how early it was released in PS3s life. The ledges you can grab stand out and the puzzles are quite simple. And while all three of the games are very linear in progression the first one shows it in the worst kind of way. The biggest problem of this game is the relentless waves of enemies you have to fight all through the game. This is compounded by the fact that the enemies are pretty much the same from start to finish, all through out the game you are fighting generic human dudes. The only difference comes very late, too late, in the game and I found that other type of enemy even simpler to defeat. The game also suffers badly from videogameititis when it comes to enemies, which is, even if you just opened the way by using a hidden and very elaborate mechanism that has not been used for centuries the enemies will still waiting for you on the other side. What carries this game is the story and the believable characters, the reward of pushing through yet another set of generic baddies is that you get to see the story move one step further.
There were also some control issues in the PS3 version, but the remaster has fixed those and I had no problems.

The second game, Among Thieves, improves in every aspect. The environments feel more alive and detailed, they also more epic with larger rooms and elaborate structures. The game is much better paced, there are sections where you just explore and solve puzzles giving you a break from combat. There is still a lot of combat though but this time it's not the only thing you do. While majority of time is spent shooting there are some added stealth elements to occasionally help to make the battles more in your favor if you spend some time setting things up. The majority of enemies are human dudes again, but at least there is clearly different types this time to break the monotony. With this game the enemies make more sense too, you either chase the enemies when they have opened the doors or they come from behind when you open the doors. This game also has more and more epic setpieces than the first game. The story and characters are well-written again, in many ways it's even better than the first game.

The third game, Drake's Deception, has all the elements from the second game but it does not improve really. Overall the third game feels like a rehash of the previous two games. The story, while good on it's own, feels like it goes through the same ideas as the first and second game. Lots of combat in this one too, nothing has changed, but in this one the combat is less fun than in the second one and it feels like they just shoved a lot of enemies in without a thought like in the first game. This is made worse now that there are multiple enemy types that take a lot of damage and you have to fight them all at once. The game tries to suggest to take the stealth option at few points, but it doesn't seem plausible way to complete the area in reality and it's just easier to kill everybody. Also taking out few guys stealthily doesn't really help in the big battle that will eventually ensue so it seems pointless to even try. Epic setpieces are back, in fact they are too back, there is simply too much of them. You go from epic setpiece to epic setpiece to another epic setpiece which dulls their effect. The only thing the third game improves is the puzzles, this time the puzzles really make you think and they give you a good sense of accomplishment when you finally figure them out.

Overall I enjoyed the series. The second game is the best, followed by the third game. The first game isn't bad, it's just not as polished as the other two. If you decide to pick these up you really need to play them in order anyway to get the full story in the right order.

I am eagerly waiting for Uncharted 4...
 
Hitman: Absolution

Lovely graphics. I like how there are many ways to get through the levels and countless directions to take. It's not rigid.
 
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition, 28 hours

Far better than The Witcher 1. Above average, but still not really unequivocally good. Positives:
  • Excellent graphics for its age. Lots of detail, fantastic textures, good lighting and special effects, ok draw distance, reasonable model quality. Very impressive cutscenes.
  • Really good soundtrack.
  • More interesting questing than in The Witcher 1 and the lore just keeps getting better, although much of the questing is still "go there kill that".
  • Good pacing, hardly ever boring, almost too fast-paced at times (even though mechanically I should do inventory management and crafting, it feels wrong to relax because the game is machinegunning action sequences and threats your way)
  • Believable and relatable characters with both friendly and hostile personalities present, and characters are mostly quite multidimensional.
  • More time spent with the main characters (like Triss and Roche), even in the game proper and not just cutscenes is always good.
  • More intuitive user interface than The Witcher 1. Better controls. Gamepad support (I played with the xbone controller).
  • Fluid and exciting combat system compared to The Witcher 1.
  • Loot and equipment matters.

But it has plenty of flaws, some more important than others.
  • Rather railroady questline and map design where there aren't too many opportunities for exploration, and the writing (even the quest system itself) fails if you do some things in the wrong order.
  • Controls are still very clunky in places, for example when going through doors and climbing.
  • User interface is too streamlined in places, for example can only loot nothing or (X) to loot all. Have fun managing that inventory clutter :(
  • UI is downright superjanky in other ways, such as not having quick access to saving or the map when using a gamepad.
  • UI doesn't feel smooth, for example navigating the "quick menu" (radial menu from (LT) button) or using the character/alchemy/potions interface always takes button-smashing before things will activate
  • Map is almost completely worthless. No place names (no English country names so can't really understand the world lore from there), not possible to view all quests on there, can't use it to navigate mazelike places (such as Loc Muinne or whatever its name was).
  • Potions are almost completely useless. Apart from hardly ever helping with combat, just the fact you can't use them mid-combat and have to know to save before combat and reload after you know what you need and "prepare" before battle makes them almost pointless.
  • Even worse system of difficulty than The Witcher 1. I played on Normal most of the time. Overall, the game was very manageable, just like Normal would imply (so, just right for my lore needs). The thing is that when there was a scripted battle, the difficulty is introduced arbitrarily (enemies are suddenly quite tough and health regen is basically taken away for no reason). Once there was an NPC to protect, and the Normal enemies just made a beeline for the NPC and killed her before I could even start managing the fight. In boss fights the boss is almost always invulnerable for no apparent reason, and has totally unfair/uncounterable ability combos that directly counter melee combat. Also it seems that some of the fights are supposed to be won by cheesing out signs/traps/etc instead of actual fair combat. Example, a teleporting mage where you are supposed to learn where he teleports and signtrap/instakill him in that specific spot. That is the exact opposite of how I want melee combat difficulty in an RPG to work. So, to be honest I skipped the boss fights by setting the game to Easy for their duration. That even highlights how dumb the difficulty system is: Easy setting not only makes you take less damage and the enemy have less HP, but it disables the unfair bit, so that the enemy doesn't cockblock your combat moves and you just basically autowin against him by playing normally. So adjusting the toughness of the characters is actually counterproductive for enjoyment, just lifting the invulnerability and unfair attacks would be enough.
  • Combat feels clunky because signs (e.g. Yrden) take a long time to cast, and during melee combat, animations for heavy strikes etc. can't be overridden by movement like dodging. There's a lot of unnecessary damage taken because of this clunkiness. Also, combat mode takes a while to end after combat, so you will have to sit around waiting for loot to appear and doors to activate.
  • "Highlight interactable objects" is a thing for a reason, but doesn't exist in this game. You can only "search" manually with the witcher sense. I wonder how much stuff I missed.
  • Performance is passable, but not great. I had to take every last bit of performance from my machine (about 21k 3DMarks) to run it at 4k ultra. Internet says The Witcher 3 performs better than this.
  • Totally unnecessarily and disrespectfully long credits (like solid 25 minutes of sloooowly rolling credits where everyone down to the intern making coffee in the Spanish office gets mentioned). I try to respect every game's developers by watching the credits but ones like these make me second-guess myself on that.
  • Autosave is still too lazy. By the end of the game I was manually saving via the menu basically before every door, and I had so many saves that the load menu took a solid 5 seconds to even open. I see that in The Witcher 3 they've made the autosave interval in minutes manually adjustable. They just don't get the point. Autosave needs to trigger when there's about to be combat (the game engine knows this), when a quest is resolved and when location changes, and that's all.

I could list n+1 more little niggles I had with the game but I'll just say it feels like they purposefully avoid commonly known good practices, and instead they find all the rough edges and bad solutions themselves, and fix stuff for the next game. Still, worth it for the lore and the entertainment value of the storytelling. Onwards to The Witcher 3...
 
Fallout 4

So I did put just about 100 hours in this one and completed and collected pretty much everything (got all achievements and my gameplay is 99% completed). I had been waiting for this long time and had to get next gen console just for this game. At first I was amazed and disappointed at the same time, because it was beautiful to look at, but I really didn't like voiced player charater and the new dialogue, but I got over it eventually. It has some major bugs like corrupt save files or broken side guests, which do still annoy me, but hey its an Bethesda product.

My main complain is the guests. Objectives only seem to be kill or/and fetch something ( just like Fallout 3 ), without any real dialogue/other options. I hope Obsidian gets to make an sequel, because New Vegas was much stronger with the story and how the guest were done.

Anyway it was fun to wander around Commonwealt hunting/scavenging rare items and creatures. New idea of using power armors as more of an vehicle than just another kind of armor like in older Fallouts is great. I like to tune my power armor with new updates and cool paintjobs even thought i use normal stealthier armors most of the time. Best part of the game is the Glowing Sea and I wouldnt mind a future DLC located in there or place of same kind.

Fallout 3 had some really good DLC, so I hope this will have too. I could write tons of text about this game, but I'm bad/lazy in writing so this is enough.

Rating= 8/10



I just bought Dead Rising 3 with low expectations and it is GREAT FUN! Gonna write something about it when I complete the game.
 
Interesting thoughts, thanks. I've heard from 3 people about FO4, some rather varying opinions. One said it got grindy towards the end and he was anxious for it to end. One said it just got better towards the end. Mutual to everyone was a lukewarm overall feeling about the game, and I've seen that time and time again in reviews also. Bugs, not that emotionally gripping, general unpolishedness, less RPG-like, etc. But not played the game personally. Gotta say, seeing how conflicted everyone is about it, I don't regret not buying it on launch.
 
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The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, 68 hours and counting

Traditional open world game a'la Skyrim, so credits haven't rolled yet, and will not do so any time soon. I got to the final battle and decided to start sidequesting and DLC-ing instead of finishing the main story (I'll explain why in the negatives below). I'll write up my thoughts about the game anyway.

Positives:
  • Excellent graphical fidelity. Screenshots don't do it justice, but here, have a look at some I took, anyway
  • Well produced, "epic" and really atmospheric soundtrack
  • Incredible weather effects (wind, rain, colors of sunlight)
  • Slick UI that is nice to use and streamlined from the previous games
  • Very large open world, full of detail and stuff, that also doesn't repeat itself
  • Varied locales that look, feel and sound very unique
  • Very nice and compelling loot and equipment progression system
  • A LOT of characters, both main characters and interesting side characters.
  • Writing pretty much what you'd expect (in a good way), with occasional much better bits thrown in
  • Combat is definitely the most fluid, fair, logical and enjoyable out of all the Witcher games
  • Enemy difficulty scaling during the main questline is spot on
  • Main questline is very compelling and well produced
  • Questing with the main characters is still very enjoyable and the quests themselves are reasonably interesting
  • Ciri is a very interesting and well-written character with great voice acting (of course, she's Hawke from Dragon Age), and it doesn't hurt that she's very pretty and super adorable.
  • Playing as Ciri is very refreshing and she has a unique and enjoyable combat style compared to Geralt (in fact I would prefer playing as her due to her mobility)
  • Important returning side characters characters feel like logical continuations from the previous games
  • Performance is excellent. It really does run better than The Witcher 2. I get 35+ fps at 4K maxed settings, with stock clocks on GTX 980 SLI. That is really great performance from a new and great looking game.
  • Reasonably moddable and mods actually get made for it

Negatives:
  • Story is still very "urgent" while the nature of the open world, and side quests conflict with that
  • Main quests very rarely resolve with a satisfying feeling because almost every one ends in a cliffhanger/teaser and urgency for the next one.
  • Personal opinion here, but the whole concept of the Wild Hunt, the multidimensional and magical threat and personal fight against said threat, and the nature of Ciri's involvement in the whole situation, is pretty uninteresting and unbelievable. The earlier games were more down to earth in their stories which made them a lot more interesting. To me, the interesting and appealing part of TW3's main story kinda ended with the conclusion of Act II, with the remaining portion being so out of this world and uninteresting, that I lost interest in even seeing the final scenes.
  • Ciri sections are super-enjoyable, but super-short
  • Less time overall spent with the other important characters, compared to TW2
  • Some of the writing is really sloppy. I'll list examples. The integration of Yennefer into the story. She's supposed to be a soulbound mate to Geralt while being a hotheaded personality that lead to a flaky relationship, but actually, she just comes across as a one-dimensional bitch. It gets a little better towards the end but it's still nowhere near the complex and endearing writing of Triss, for example. Other examples of sloppy writing: short and unsatisfying Radovid questline, short and unsatisfying Roche+Ves quests, behavior of Emhyr, unsatisfying end state for the chosen leader of Skellige, choices impacting Ciri's fate and the fate options themselves. List goes on.
  • Very lonely game. There is no companion system, despite the engine generally having support for it. The nature of the open world freeroaming would greatly benefit from it. There's a mod to enable this, which I've started using, but the writing, quest and gamesave systems and AI don't support a permanent companion.
  • Probably the worst endgame state in the industry, among post-credits freeroaming games. Certainly worse than Skyrim. Competes with Dragon Age and Mass Effect 3 for the dishonor of being the worst.
  • While playing the game it feels pretty arbitrary where in the game world the enemies get scaled to below or above your level. As an example, it's pretty understandable that Skellige is pretty hard when you first arrive there, but in contrast, after getting back, south of Novigrad is a cakewalk, but northeast of Novigrad is a curbstomp against you.
  • The rest of the negatives I can think of are on the level of the following: there are far too few friendly home bases where you can REST / spend the night. Example, inns in TW1, don't exist here. You have to make your own head canon for staying at like Triss' place or at the houses of people you've quested for. Outside of that, you're forced to "meditate" in shacks filled with rotting corpses, for example. Since the overall quality level of the game is so high I won't go into the other nitty gritty annoyances.

In conclusion, it's among the top-5 best RPGs ever made, and should be played by anyone even slightly interested in RPGs. It only suffers from a worse story than the other 2 Witcher games and the fact that, at heart, it's a really lonely and depressing open world.

Is it better than Skyrim? Of course it is, it's 4 years newer.

Is it better than Dragon Age: Inquisition? No, it's just different. They're both equally well produced with slightly different mechanical and writing emphasis, and both have serious flaws. I spent 200+ hours on that game across 2 playthroughs, whereas I have no desire to replay this game or really even spend more than 100 hours on it. I'll leave the comparison at that.

I'll continue playing TW3 in small doses, sidequesting and doing contracts with Ciri, gathering enough xp to complete Hearts of Stone and the upcoming 2nd DLC...

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MGS: Ground Zeroes. Never played any of the previous games since I never had PS2/PS3 but now I get why people fucking love this franchise and Kojima. Moving on to MGSV soon since I've recently picked it up.
 
MGS: Ground Zeroes. Never played any of the previous games since I never had PS2/PS3 but now I get why people fucking love this franchise and Kojima. Moving on to MGSV soon since I've recently picked it up.

I've attempted to start Ground Zeroes several times. But it's the stupid checkpoint system that ruins it for me every single time. Getting a checkpoint save and a few seconds later the guy you've put to sleep earlier gets woken up and raises the alarm. Great, stealth walkthrough ruined. And there is no way to restore to an earlier checkpoint that I can see.
 
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Just finished Transformers: Devastation. Picked it up for 3? retail which is an insane deal considering it's 40? on Steam. So, it's made by Platinum Games and it's just the 80s Transformers game. Graphics a cool, gameplay is great and soundtrack fits the mood. Kinda short, finished my playthrough in 6 hours but there are collectibles and achievements to do, as well as try out all the 5 Autobots. All things considered and because it feels like a good PC port, 9/10? Nostalgia ftw.
 
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