Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army(4.4 hours): Bro do you even know how to zombie apocaAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH........how to zombie apocaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH...............zombie apocaAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH.......................-_- lypse.
P.S. I know I have been slacking but game time has been hard to come by the past few months. Should have more soon.
Hawken(10.7 hours): F2P(P2Wish). Download and play two hours of this game. This is a mech game that is first person but a more quake style version of it. The majority is just simple multiplayer with DM, TDM, CP(ticket based), CP(with battle ships and AA guns). Then there is a Co-Op mode. The maps are impressively large so you can spend some time running around trying to find people that hopefully won't slaughter you in 10 seconds or lay in wait. Skill can play a huge factor in this game. Since you have to manage your heat levels, fuel for dodging/boosting/jump jets, and the heavy weapon reload time it gives you perfect chances to learn how to shuck fire and push other players into corners so you can easily unload on them by dampening their agility. Some times this feels like two soldiers in TF2 trying to duel, nerve racking. But it is utterly fantastic walking into a 2v1 and destroying them in a lightweight mech. You can grind or pay to buy new weapons and modules which will give you an edge on lower level players, skill can compensate a great deal though so do not be fooled that a new player cannot win every match-up. The Co-op is wave based with 4 players against bots. You collect EU that powers your upgrades in armor, damage, and heat. Every 5 rounds there is a boss introduced into that round and they are a pain in the butt so you end up clearing all smaller mechs while running from him and then everyone spends a few minutes dumping on him, you need a medic mech for this. There is an end at wave 20 with 3 bosses, getting there is crazy with the number of mechs you end up slaughtering in a fest of machine guns and TOW rockets. If you are really interested in mech games I would say give this 15-20 hours so you can unlock some of the better mods and pick up a few new mechs. The online players seem to be a smaller group and finding even matches can be really hard but rewarding when tides shift through the 10 minute rounds. It is free so give it a shot.
Red Faction: Guerrilla(8.4 hours) This is why they don't have zoos on Mars. The game isn't new and I never finished playing through when I bought it but I did a start to finish with this. Destroying stuff is just pure amazing in this game. Need to invade a base all stealthy but there isn't a back door just let the worlds strongest man on Mars take care of that for you with his trust sledgehammer. Mounted gun in a tower, just hug the wall and toss charges over to blow it up before you hammer your way through a wall. The plot missions are kind of fun and interesting but tell a very simply story that didn't feel to compelling added to this are the generic side missions that are just repeats each time. Though there are some interesting points considering you can free regions from EDG control by either helping the people, blowing up all the EDG's stuff, or a mix. You come to a Mars as a miner but I could never really find any true mines since most of the miners were on the surface braking crystals for these weird spike balls that give you metal salvage????? Not horrible but not great, leaves me wondering how Armageddon is.
Games Completed: 49
Time: 2 weeks 98.47 hours
P.S. I had a lot of crashes, textures disappearing, and crazy weird lighting the entire game which was annoying and ate away at the atmosphere but I am chalking that up to old game on new hardware and OS.
Red Faction: Armageddon(6.5 hours): I almost ended up doing this game in one sitting since it was several degrees more enjoyable than Guerrilla. The shooting parts of the game weren't sloppy and loose. The story was much more linear, and could have done with a few possible side missions, but it strung together events very well. Pretty much you are no longer a Mason miner but a Mason soldier that ends up with this really cool mining gun that shoots magnets. Imagine using the gravity gun for 99% of HL2! The most critical improvement is giving you the ability to repair junk so you no longer have to worry about dickbutts destroying stairs and preventing you from finishing a mission. Now it amounts to use the mining gun to shoot huge sections of building at enemies and then when you are done but everything back in its place. The same basic tactic still applies after you get half way through the game and just charge through the enemies to clear objectives first and then they will happen to die randomly without leaving bodies after that.
Sanctum(7.3 hours): Already had time on the clock and started over. The first time playing this game I got frustrated and gave up partly because I am horrible at building efficient mazes in these games. Pretty much all levels are free form so setting up the maze wrong in the first few rounds will spell disaster unless you scrap the entire thing and start over....the last level stumped me a few times sad to say. This is a first person tower defense with guns and blocks and towers and a lot of a woman making grunting sounds. One change from other tower games that the community has been playing for a while is that there is a build phase before the wave that is unlimited but you are unable to build or upgrade once the wave starts. The build phase is also used to upgrade your weapons and there needs to be a balance some times where you must use your upgrades on weapons instead of towers due to armored or tank enemies. There isn't a story which is kind of boring since each map can easily take you 40 minutes. Defense Grid this is not. This always goes on sale with the humble bundle store. It is interesting so try it if you like tower defense games. There are a bunch of DLC I do not own for the game and there is a sequel that I will be tackling soon.
Sanctum 2(7.2): I still stink at building mazes but this game also requires you to play with others to finish it. Eventually after replaying a map several times I switched to an easier difficulty and then it was super easy, there should have been a level between. The sequel is a bit of a shake up. Enemies are altered, some new and old towers, better visual style and there is a story of some kind. With the changes also comes a heavier reliance on the FPS portion and a pull away from the tower aspect. You can play as 4 players and have a full team of 4 people, all games are actually multiplayer even though you think you are playing single player. The different characters have different weapons but everyone has the same access to the same towers and perks, the player perks really set off how you prefer to play in a great way. They are starting to get how to make their game but the forced nature of co-op/4p in this game bugs me just as in any other game. Campaign should be 1 person not 4.
Fieldrunners(6.7 hours): This ends my run of tower defense games for a bit. This has pretty much 100% free form maps. Saying this game is tower defense is kind of a stretch when you compare it to the other games in this genre that most of us have played. Maze builder fits better. If you are playing in classic mode then each round of 100 waves gives you only 4 towers to use. The result from this is the levels are all about how to build the longest maze that reuses as many towers as possible to maximize wave damage per tower. There isn't really a strategy to combo towers because the flying units in this game go straight from entrance to exit which is a cop-out. Flying units are there just to say not every tower is a missile turret so you loose this 20 minute game. Makes you really feel like a cold slap to the gamer's face when you don't use half your maze to deal with ground units but you can't stop at least 1 flying unit from making it through. A challenge can be felt simply running the classic mode, at least for me, but by the last two levels I was laying down the law with on a few errors. The achievements for this game are crazy, 100 wins and 100 losses..... They feel like achievements from Guns of Icarus where you have 800 of them but you play for 30 hours and you realize it takes hundreds of hours to get most of them.
Lifeless Planet(3.9 hours): Achievement for finishing the game in under 4 hours, just barely made it. Buy this game in the humble bundle weekly right now. You have to pay $10 to get this game but it is worth $5 if you only ever play it once. The challenges in the game aren't difficult except a few points where you might not realize you are suppose to interact a certain.......or jump off a lift and it stops in a position you can't get back on it.......or stuff glitches and you are stuck holding nothing and can't pick items back up. There are a few problems with the game but overall gives a solid experience that is extremely enjoyable. I started playing last night and finished it this morning instead of finishing up Fieldrunners 2.
This is a third person adventure game with simple jumping puzzles and interaction puzzles. Controlling the jumps in 4 places can be extremely stressful but it might be easier with a control then keyboard. There are a few points I wish your character spouted off a few lines simply because I am saying things in my head as I traverse the maps. Overall there is a fantastic blend of dialogue, music, silence, and scenery. Great gaming experience with tons of running around in the areas that you can do. I feel in love with the game world because of the awe it places me in at times, sort of like finding incredible corners of a world in Minecraft. Your visor reflects everything, the one thing that shocked me about the finishing touches.
Fieldrunners 2(5.2 hours): This is a little over full complete because there are some puzzle maps and 1 of them can only be finished after you finish all of the campaign maps. The second was much more enjoyable and kind of strange. Everything was redesigned so there wasn't such a heavy to develop a complete maze for every single level but this resulted in large maps where you only build half of the field for the entire campaign which seemed like a massive design issue. Execution of the game elements felt a lot better since you could build to a preference and it would work instead of build the maze then replace with 50% missile turrets. Graphics were greatly improved improved as well as the addition of some boss levels and a better story, though extremely small but it is tower defense. Worth it on the super cheap, so in a humble bundle pack with other stuff you want.
Space Engineers(15 hours+): I have to remind myself to eat and sleep and do simple task because I am so busy watching for the next large tube and computer component to be built so I can build 1/50 of a container. Then fly my mining ship and watch my crapy built ship fly into pieces for unknown reason, when drills that have been on there from the start fly off for no reason and destroy I just do not know any more. This is a more tedious version of minecraft in space with cool graphics and a lot of I have NO IDEA WHAT I AM DOING! You can start a map with different resources but it all comes down to you needing to mine ore from asteroids, refine them, assemble parts, and then build the parts in structures that you can use to make ships, rovers, solar arrays, missiles, more ships, space stations, etc. You should take a look at some youtube videos of this game just to see what people are already doing with a bunch of parts to the game not working correctly. There is a huge amount of grinding in this game if you play alone due to the time for refining and collecting resources plus you can only carry a small amount of supplies to build things with. One of the interesting things is that you can turn on asteroid storms and it gives you a single purpose since they will wreck all your shit if you don't build in asteroids or massive defense web/barriers to clear out incomings.
Bioshock Infinite Clash in the Clouds(5 hours): Fight waves and waves of baddies in infinite. Destroy @GnomeQueen scores and laugh yourself to sleep while wearing your cat as a hat.
Bioshock Infinite Burial at Sea: eh, kind of interesting. They bring parts of infinite in but don't really give you time to play with it unless you grind for 100%. Hard say much without ruining it but the title is a big spoiler.
Toy Soldiers(9.1 hours): Tower defense game set in the Great War and allows player take over of towers and some extra planes and tanks. Uh. 2 campaigns of 12 maps plus a 3rd shorter campaign all with the same units. Campaign and Campaign+ use the same freaking maps all the way through except now you are on the other side of the map but with the same tower positions. When I finally got to 6 hours and not being done with everything I started to dread playing more, finishing up Campaign+ and the Kaiser Battles was a struggle with my fortitude. There are in mission objectives to "unlock" stuff to look at but eventually I would end just surfing the web while toy tanks burst into cogs and springs. The Invasion campaign was a nice change and good length. 5 missions....??? But they brought in ray guns, knights with spears, and P51s that made flying much more enjoyable. Performance wise it is great, smooth zoom in and out.
Chivalry: Medieval Warfare(10.4 hours): Dude.....dude..........knights. I apparently decided to get back into the game when there was a free weekend. Chopping off arms, heads, and legs are awesome. The mechanics for edging blocks and parry function still escape me to a large degree. The game is great and is worth hours of play because you can have fun playing all classes even if you don't play them well. Whacking a group with a double sided axe and having their heads explode in a gory spray never gets old.
South Park™: The Stick of Truth™(10.4 hours): fart Bro SICK. This was a game that I have anticipated playing for about a year before release and since then I have been waiting for it on the cheap because I can wait a year for most games.....because of this stupid backlog junk. The story is what you have to expect in this game since it is South Park and what else is the show known for besides great plot and story development. So much of the game is just spot on for what you would expect and want from this game. Farting, poop, things up butts, sex, ew girls, jesus, kids being fuckshits. There are some elements missing which kind of makes you sad but there had to be reasons for it.
Gameplay is fairly solid. They implemented an attack/block scheme that feels sloppy at times and timing can be unfair while using certain abilities. You can kill off enemies before some battles which without doing so would make them impossible. Half way through the game it seemed like there was a swift uptick in difficulty for no real reasons since all battles moving forward just seemed that much harder. I knocked out a bunch of the side quest but the 7 hour mark really started to drag due to quest chaining and rough battles. The puzzles and shortcuts were all pretty straight forward except for one stupid elevator that had to be fixed and it felt like someone overlooked it and never had a play tester check it.
Bought the game at about $17 with both DLCs, bought the DLCs because I believed in the game despite them just being classes and outfits. Next time this game is onsale get it despite Ubisoft publishing it.
Mark of the Ninja(7 hours?): Checked my time before I finished and I thought it was 7.04, profile says 5.3, and the library page on steam says 6? This is a sub 10 hour game if you don't go for many achievements and just work on finishing and doing some exploring. There is a New Game+ if you want to play this assassination puzzle game twice. I am not very good at stealth games so I was extremely worried going into this, but I like puzzle games despite being horrible at points in them. The 2D art style is well executed though there are some subtle background items as the game progresses that I missed until the last 30 minutes, spend some time looking at everything visually to get the full atmosphere. Kind of glad a I played it so I can say I have incase people want to discuss it but I am on the fence if I would recommend it to just anyone. To do everything in the game you will have to replay or do 1 achievement and then reset/die to continue properly(I think). eh, its fun enough. Play it if you got, wubububububububu I am a ninja.
Dishonored(8.4): wwwwaaaaaa Bethesda are you sure you can make a game. I remember when this game out and it was a big deal. Let a friend borrow my Dishonored shirt cause hers had vomit on it. Long story short I don't have that shirt and the person that was suppose to give it back to me still has it, that shirt was so darn comfy and free with my press pass that year UH I WANT IT BACK! That free comfy shirt was the best part of Dishonored. When the game first loaded I had to double check quality to make sure it was all the way up due to the models being such low quality. Infinite was launched 6 months after Dishonored. Infinite is fantastic with moving clothing and wonderful graphics while Dishonored has solid body clothing, characters that look like 40 year old farmers with unrealistic bodies, and what seems like could of been done on source engine. When I look at control panels and flat environmental surfaces and I have to remind myself this isn't HL2 and is in fact from 2012. This is a stealth game that seems oriented towards killing everyone so you are capable of doing all side quest and finding items, I went in thinking there was going to be the option for run and gunning.
There is a function in the game that results from your actions called chaos and even in levels where I killed no one I didn't have to it was still at a high level. I don't know; junk and stuff. The climbing function was really nice. If you thought you should be able to grab onto a ledge or use your magic to get there you could. There are several points where I simply climbed over everything to get through in a timely manner. Who the heck is the outsider? This is a character that is mentioned for important reasons but no one knows who is or what he really does. He just is there because they needed magic. The plot, story telling, and most of the characters are horrible. boo
I enjoyed the stealth missions possibly because the industry has forced me to have very low standards for stealth missions, the rest of the everything was sub-par, agreed.
Gratuitous Space Battles(5.6 hours): I have played through all of the scenarios a few times so it feels like enough. There is a surprising amount of DLC content to the game which feels kind of weird since a lot of the game is based off of build your own ship. You fight in sandbox matches with a fleet of ships you can use that are premade or hand built. Running through the "campaign" missions help you unlock building blocks and ship layouts. It is pretty fun to sit down and play a few matches so you can try some things and then turn it off for an early bed time. Worth a few bucks but I also know there are several people on Icrontic that would dig into this game hardcore given the level of ship customization.
From Dust(5.9 hours): Bought this game for a hat and the game play looked cool enough for the price. You are the breath and must help the men travel to the home of the ancients using totems, powers, and knowledge of earth junk. Most of the levels can be rather short if you can figure out how to overcome the challenges without much trial and error. This is actually 170% play through since I lost an old save. Getting through half the game is easy and should take less than an hour, the last 5 maps were a pain because they all involve timing elements. There are enough game play mechanics to make you struggle with a well executed plan because of things like fire and water. A one sitting game, with uPlay.
Knights of Pen and Paper +1(14.1 hours): I didn't finish this game but fuck this game. Seriously. I wish this game was a real object so I could fuck it with a pipe to its face I HATE YOU. There are more campaign quest and when I check to see where the end is after getting sent to a dungeon that was a stupid jump in difficulty I said screw it I spent enough time grinding for no reason. AAA!! for the awesome at least game some enjoyment to the grind this is pointless in the regards of you have to take your entire party up 10 more levels, 35 to 45, just to have a slim chance for completion. And all loot that is dropped can be bought in the store so drops are pointless.
This is a mobile game that has been moved to steam but it is a massive grind fest, to level the blacksmith up 1 level I spent half an hour travelling and collecting grind stones then spent another hour gold farming to take a 60% chance at smithing 2 items. I stopped reading the quest information since it is not required to do all the gofer questing, mob grinding drop questing, or 4 stag battle sequences. They wrote in a bunch of meta gaming for reasons unknown. You spend a time uncursing the king because who knows, and if it isn't the king it is some old man that later turns out to be the kings older brother.....again. Completing all of the side quests in the game also won't really cut down on the amount of grinding you will have to do but getting the bulk exp means your grinding for gold to manufacture weapons will be unnoticably shorter. The DM sucks at his job, and I mean the developers, in building a campaign. You cannot turn off the player banter so you have to see "Why do we keep coming back here" for 15 hours. Currently I am playing another game that half of it is grinding for EXP doing hack and slash and it is boring but fine because you don't have to spend the extra 2 hours clearing all stages in 1 world 100% to beat it, but it makes later battles easier so there is a direct reward.
If any of the game devs see this I am flaming with the review but is also because the game can be cut in half, and it might be enjoyable. Watching 60's movies while playing your game doesn't mean I am doing it because it was good.
I might finish this game at some point, maybe. GOSH I WANT TO PUNCH THIS THING IN THE FACE! ITS NOT EVEN SO BAD IT IS GOOD!
Finn and Jake's Epic Quest(4.1 hours): Me like adventure time. Me have several AT items. AT games almost never go on sale and when they do it isn't for very much. Bought this one and figured I would knife storm my way through this hella hard because I am the cool guy. Premise of the game is that you are now inside of a game and you have to collect artifacts to save BMO who is being held hostage. There are four worlds to fight through that have 6 dungeon stages where you collect EXP, coins, and pages of the Encirdieonmewhatsit that are really spells. You can get asked to defeat certain things, find x number of pages, or collect x amount of money as side quest. There is a leveling process to become stronger and get Billy to upgrade your gear. Hack and slash your way through the levels. The mini map sucks because it only tells you where the enemies are and you can use it like a regular map to find your way around which is super annoying since after the first half of the first world the maps become complex enough that you can get turned around easily. The boss's have a stupid voice because apparently the only people they paid for this game were the voice actors for Finn, Jake, and BMO????!!!! Anyone who likes AT and punching dwebs in the face should get at least an hour out of this game but if you are bored with the ever increasing grind and unfair stun lock from some enemies you can just run through and only fight the bosses which is amusing when you realize that enemies can't attack you if you never stop. There is some replay ability if you can ignore how you are suppose to go back levels within a world and several of the map and character glitches. Pricey but if you collect AT at all then I think buying at least one of their games is worth it and this seemed good enough.
Defense Grid 2(4.2 hours): [Spoiler at the end]The story mode is pretty short, you can play it in an afternoon and then still have time left over. The graphics took a nice jump, though the aliens seemed smaller meant that I cared little what they looked like. The story continues from the last game which amounts to aliens have overrun most of your colonies and you need to fight them off. More characters are introduced with an assortment of personalities. There is work done to make you have a vested interest in the AIs but it only half works. Each mission has a loading screen with great information and I found that the most compelling for driving the story. There are tooo many game modes, seriously like a metric f*** ton of them. I finished story mode and it didn't have all my card drops for the game so I had to play other modes to finish that up which I found humorous. You can do multiplayer, co-op, limited resources, limited towers, etc, etc, etc. I didn't buy this early because I felt the game was getting over priced despite DG1 being a massive jump in tower defense games and seems to have made the entire genre diversify through experimental games. DG2 is a hype game for DG3, for realz I don't care I played the game one bit but the ending I screamed because DG3! The build a maze maps were lack luster. When you give really small areas for 1 or 2 turn backs it looses its effect since you can build poorly and it doesn't hurt you. But when you have the entire map a build a maze you have to know how to optimize before you get started, DG2 failed at this when I felt so frustrated in DG1 screwing one piece up resulting in me having to restart the mission.
Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons(2.6 hours): Bro this shit is sad, for realz. You need a controller for this game because you control two characters at the same time. I remember when this game was released and everyone loved it. The game is kind of fun but it is very enjoyable because it is a nice little game. Everything is very polished about this game which I think is one of its primary selling points. All the modeling is super solid, collision is fantastic, all the little details like foot steps and shadows are present. My only words on the build of the game falls to the wood chips from that one action were squares?? and you would make jumps but all of a sudden the character would jump wall falling to grab something but it is a none issue. There is a fake language in the game but the characters pantomime what they are saying. This is starting to bug me partly since I stopped watching movies with any subtitles so foreign languages I have no idea what is being said and it makes me pay attention more and delve into the characters more. Use a foreign language or just pantomime with music over top because when there are only a dozen words said they get reused but incorrectly in dialogue and I notice it.
The game follows two brothers that are sent on a mission to find a plant/tree/healing potion for their father that is on his death bed. You face challenges reaching your goal that need to be solved by brothers that work together. Controls are extremely basic; both triggers and joysticks are all you need. The camera can be rotated or you can leave let it wonder because the game keeps rotating it screwing up your movements. Leave the camera alone, come on guys. This game covers all the bases for crazy dark things: grieving, bullying, kidnapping/slave trade, war, religious zealots, death. Then when you think they have taken the darkest turns they are going to it goes farther and you wonder "why are you making me do this really stop I don't want to". If you have this game sit down and play it and experience it.
[spoiler]
One point in the game I thought it was about to turn from "A Tale of Two Sons" to "Two Brothers ménage à trois"
But in the end it was really about the founding of House Greyjoy; THAT WHICH IS DEAD MAY NEVER DIE!
Alice: Madness Returns(12.0 hours): I have wanted to play this game for about a year but still refrained from buying, this winter sale I bought several games I had waited on. You can have multiple games going within Alice so that means you have a fairly annoying selection screen despite having only one user which in turn means you can't just click back/back/exit since it exits you back to game/user selection. WHY??!?!?!?! WWWWHHHHYYYYY?!?!?!?! Make it harder to switch the user that is active and easier to quit. who plays and then says you know what John wants to play for 2 hours after me......no one does that they quit the freaking game you lame wads.
Playing this after Brothers is pretty great since this is another visually polished game. Everything has its place, models are solid, the environment has great depth, and the jumping is solid despite spending a lot of time floating over open space. Bro, come bro listen.....you fart butterflies when you jump. Dude I ain't pulling your let, butterflies. :awesome: Now Alice as a character is great because she gives a strong contrast to all the others in the game. Most people are "off" or they are wonderland creatures but Alice has features that seem normal except her eyes and she feels like the only balanced and sane person. Helping her out is the fact she is pale and raven haired which I am a massive sucker for. But you go through the game and collect teeth, bottles, and memories. No idea why teeth, what the bottles do, or if getting all the memories does something for you. There is little explanation on what the side items in the game do or even how you access the weapon upgrade screen(esc>weapon upgrade). Seems as though they relied on people having played the original game since there are references from the start to it.
The first two stages are rather straight forward with jump, fight, errands. Then when you get to the third stage, you think crap this is going to take me 3 hours because now the go fetch will be X amount longer but no they diverge. This stage just doesn't seem to fit because the colur pallet changes, contrast is poor, steps forward for the level don't give you a sense on the distance left to the end, and just ok??. One of the more important things is they introduce new segments to the level that will get used later, it is fun and interesting. But what happens with this introduction is a flaw that just grinds on you in later levels and that is camera angle. The cool new stuff they bring into levels to make them fun and have variance have horrible camera control. Points happen where the camera is locked in tight and then without warning you are given camera control. They do this and hide things behind so you are suppose to walk backwards off screen. Just a plain dick move; here I dropped you into this room and took camera control but if you walk back to this corner you can't see and press C you get something. 4th and 5th stage fall back in line but enemies have an increasing ability to stun lock you or their attacks are interrupts despite you hitting them. Also some nice scenes where you run away but they don't let you see where you are running because that isn't important, you watching what is chasing you is. Some times you will get hit and the camera jumps which causes you to look behind you. No idea on some of the later glitches but during stage 3 things feel different until the end.
This game is awesome. This game is dark. This game is fun. Play this game. Next time it is on sale buy it if you don't own it. I finished with 87% complete on this game because the extras make sense to get and it feels right to get them which is fantastic. I watch a lot of dark dramas that have unhappy endings and to play a game that tries to give you a mad experience with ever present despair is right up my ally. The art work throughout the game pulls everything together. Chapter 4 its creepy. Walking around towards the end and just saying "wow they put that in the game, madness returns for sure". Some elements feel kind of rushed. There were fights that I thought a reasonable player would have to take damage to win because the enemy just has these cheap shots but I always came through and built my health back quickly. Countering cheap attacks gets easy when you figure out the AI gets caught on edges all the time so you have something to level harder fights. Jumping puzzles so you can see up your skirt kekekekekekekeke. A game with a lot of element variation, strong cohesive art work, and a compelling protagonist arc make this fantastic. When I found out the screen gets cracks as you are close to death I knew the experience would be great.
Games Completed: 68
Time: 3 weeks 83.07 hours
PS. I know a bunch of the reviews have gotten rather negative with small blurbs at the end talking about the positives in the game but that is directed more so the reader knows the big suck points. Letting you know some of the good bits but making you discover what made the game enjoyable on your own.
Comments
Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army(4.4 hours): Bro do you even know how to zombie apocaAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH........how to zombie apocaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH...............zombie apocaAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH.......................-_- lypse.
P.S. I know I have been slacking but game time has been hard to come by the past few months. Should have more soon.
Games completed: 47
Time: 2 weeks 79.37 hours
Hawken(10.7 hours): F2P(P2Wish). Download and play two hours of this game. This is a mech game that is first person but a more quake style version of it. The majority is just simple multiplayer with DM, TDM, CP(ticket based), CP(with battle ships and AA guns). Then there is a Co-Op mode. The maps are impressively large so you can spend some time running around trying to find people that hopefully won't slaughter you in 10 seconds or lay in wait. Skill can play a huge factor in this game. Since you have to manage your heat levels, fuel for dodging/boosting/jump jets, and the heavy weapon reload time it gives you perfect chances to learn how to shuck fire and push other players into corners so you can easily unload on them by dampening their agility. Some times this feels like two soldiers in TF2 trying to duel, nerve racking. But it is utterly fantastic walking into a 2v1 and destroying them in a lightweight mech. You can grind or pay to buy new weapons and modules which will give you an edge on lower level players, skill can compensate a great deal though so do not be fooled that a new player cannot win every match-up. The Co-op is wave based with 4 players against bots. You collect EU that powers your upgrades in armor, damage, and heat. Every 5 rounds there is a boss introduced into that round and they are a pain in the butt so you end up clearing all smaller mechs while running from him and then everyone spends a few minutes dumping on him, you need a medic mech for this. There is an end at wave 20 with 3 bosses, getting there is crazy with the number of mechs you end up slaughtering in a fest of machine guns and TOW rockets. If you are really interested in mech games I would say give this 15-20 hours so you can unlock some of the better mods and pick up a few new mechs. The online players seem to be a smaller group and finding even matches can be really hard but rewarding when tides shift through the 10 minute rounds. It is free so give it a shot.
Games completed: 48
Time: 2 weeks 90.07 hours
You are winning this, bad.
Red Faction: Guerrilla(8.4 hours) This is why they don't have zoos on Mars. The game isn't new and I never finished playing through when I bought it but I did a start to finish with this. Destroying stuff is just pure amazing in this game. Need to invade a base all stealthy but there isn't a back door just let the worlds strongest man on Mars take care of that for you with his trust sledgehammer. Mounted gun in a tower, just hug the wall and toss charges over to blow it up before you hammer your way through a wall. The plot missions are kind of fun and interesting but tell a very simply story that didn't feel to compelling added to this are the generic side missions that are just repeats each time. Though there are some interesting points considering you can free regions from EDG control by either helping the people, blowing up all the EDG's stuff, or a mix. You come to a Mars as a miner but I could never really find any true mines since most of the miners were on the surface braking crystals for these weird spike balls that give you metal salvage????? Not horrible but not great, leaves me wondering how Armageddon is.
Games Completed: 49
Time: 2 weeks 98.47 hours
P.S. I had a lot of crashes, textures disappearing, and crazy weird lighting the entire game which was annoying and ate away at the atmosphere but I am chalking that up to old game on new hardware and OS.
Red Faction: Armageddon(6.5 hours): I almost ended up doing this game in one sitting since it was several degrees more enjoyable than Guerrilla. The shooting parts of the game weren't sloppy and loose. The story was much more linear, and could have done with a few possible side missions, but it strung together events very well. Pretty much you are no longer a Mason miner but a Mason soldier that ends up with this really cool mining gun that shoots magnets. Imagine using the gravity gun for 99% of HL2! The most critical improvement is giving you the ability to repair junk so you no longer have to worry about dickbutts destroying stairs and preventing you from finishing a mission. Now it amounts to use the mining gun to shoot huge sections of building at enemies and then when you are done but everything back in its place. The same basic tactic still applies after you get half way through the game and just charge through the enemies to clear objectives first and then they will happen to die randomly without leaving bodies after that.
Games Completed: 50
Time: 2 weeks 104.97 hours
Sanctum(7.3 hours): Already had time on the clock and started over. The first time playing this game I got frustrated and gave up partly because I am horrible at building efficient mazes in these games. Pretty much all levels are free form so setting up the maze wrong in the first few rounds will spell disaster unless you scrap the entire thing and start over....the last level stumped me a few times sad to say. This is a first person tower defense with guns and blocks and towers and a lot of a woman making grunting sounds. One change from other tower games that the community has been playing for a while is that there is a build phase before the wave that is unlimited but you are unable to build or upgrade once the wave starts. The build phase is also used to upgrade your weapons and there needs to be a balance some times where you must use your upgrades on weapons instead of towers due to armored or tank enemies. There isn't a story which is kind of boring since each map can easily take you 40 minutes. Defense Grid this is not. This always goes on sale with the humble bundle store. It is interesting so try it if you like tower defense games. There are a bunch of DLC I do not own for the game and there is a sequel that I will be tackling soon.
Games Completed: 51
Time: 2 weeks 112.27 hours
Sanctum 2(7.2): I still stink at building mazes but this game also requires you to play with others to finish it. Eventually after replaying a map several times I switched to an easier difficulty and then it was super easy, there should have been a level between. The sequel is a bit of a shake up. Enemies are altered, some new and old towers, better visual style and there is a story of some kind. With the changes also comes a heavier reliance on the FPS portion and a pull away from the tower aspect. You can play as 4 players and have a full team of 4 people, all games are actually multiplayer even though you think you are playing single player. The different characters have different weapons but everyone has the same access to the same towers and perks, the player perks really set off how you prefer to play in a great way. They are starting to get how to make their game but the forced nature of co-op/4p in this game bugs me just as in any other game. Campaign should be 1 person not 4.
Games Completed: 52
Time: 2 weeks 119.47 hours
Fieldrunners(6.7 hours): This ends my run of tower defense games for a bit. This has pretty much 100% free form maps. Saying this game is tower defense is kind of a stretch when you compare it to the other games in this genre that most of us have played. Maze builder fits better. If you are playing in classic mode then each round of 100 waves gives you only 4 towers to use. The result from this is the levels are all about how to build the longest maze that reuses as many towers as possible to maximize wave damage per tower. There isn't really a strategy to combo towers because the flying units in this game go straight from entrance to exit which is a cop-out. Flying units are there just to say not every tower is a missile turret so you loose this 20 minute game. Makes you really feel like a cold slap to the gamer's face when you don't use half your maze to deal with ground units but you can't stop at least 1 flying unit from making it through. A challenge can be felt simply running the classic mode, at least for me, but by the last two levels I was laying down the law with on a few errors. The achievements for this game are crazy, 100 wins and 100 losses..... They feel like achievements from Guns of Icarus where you have 800 of them but you play for 30 hours and you realize it takes hundreds of hours to get most of them.
Games Completed: 53
Time: 2 weeks 126.17 hours
Lifeless Planet(3.9 hours): Achievement for finishing the game in under 4 hours, just barely made it. Buy this game in the humble bundle weekly right now. You have to pay $10 to get this game but it is worth $5 if you only ever play it once. The challenges in the game aren't difficult except a few points where you might not realize you are suppose to interact a certain.......or jump off a lift and it stops in a position you can't get back on it.......or stuff glitches and you are stuck holding nothing and can't pick items back up. There are a few problems with the game but overall gives a solid experience that is extremely enjoyable. I started playing last night and finished it this morning instead of finishing up Fieldrunners 2.
This is a third person adventure game with simple jumping puzzles and interaction puzzles. Controlling the jumps in 4 places can be extremely stressful but it might be easier with a control then keyboard. There are a few points I wish your character spouted off a few lines simply because I am saying things in my head as I traverse the maps. Overall there is a fantastic blend of dialogue, music, silence, and scenery. Great gaming experience with tons of running around in the areas that you can do. I feel in love with the game world because of the awe it places me in at times, sort of like finding incredible corners of a world in Minecraft. Your visor reflects everything, the one thing that shocked me about the finishing touches.
*Photos that shouldn't have any real spoilers.
Games Completed: 54
Time: 2 weeks 130.07 hours
You are rocking the challenge
Fieldrunners 2(5.2 hours): This is a little over full complete because there are some puzzle maps and 1 of them can only be finished after you finish all of the campaign maps. The second was much more enjoyable and kind of strange. Everything was redesigned so there wasn't such a heavy to develop a complete maze for every single level but this resulted in large maps where you only build half of the field for the entire campaign which seemed like a massive design issue. Execution of the game elements felt a lot better since you could build to a preference and it would work instead of build the maze then replace with 50% missile turrets. Graphics were greatly improved improved as well as the addition of some boss levels and a better story, though extremely small but it is tower defense. Worth it on the super cheap, so in a humble bundle pack with other stuff you want.
Games Completed: 55
Time: 2 weeks 135.27 hours
On a side note: Fieldrunners 2 makes a GREAT casual Android game. I got it with the Humble Bundle.
Space Engineers(15 hours+): I have to remind myself to eat and sleep and do simple task because I am so busy watching for the next large tube and computer component to be built so I can build 1/50 of a container. Then fly my mining ship and watch my crapy built ship fly into pieces for unknown reason, when drills that have been on there from the start fly off for no reason and destroy I just do not know any more. This is a more tedious version of minecraft in space with cool graphics and a lot of I have NO IDEA WHAT I AM DOING! You can start a map with different resources but it all comes down to you needing to mine ore from asteroids, refine them, assemble parts, and then build the parts in structures that you can use to make ships, rovers, solar arrays, missiles, more ships, space stations, etc. You should take a look at some youtube videos of this game just to see what people are already doing with a bunch of parts to the game not working correctly. There is a huge amount of grinding in this game if you play alone due to the time for refining and collecting resources plus you can only carry a small amount of supplies to build things with. One of the interesting things is that you can turn on asteroid storms and it gives you a single purpose since they will wreck all your shit if you don't build in asteroids or massive defense web/barriers to clear out incomings.
DISCLAIMER: This is a greenlight game
Games Completed: 56
Time: 2 weeks 150.27 hours
Bioshock Infinite Clash in the Clouds(5 hours): Fight waves and waves of baddies in infinite. Destroy @GnomeQueen scores and laugh yourself to sleep while wearing your cat as a hat.
Time: 2 weeks 155.27 hours
Bioshock Infinite Burial at Sea: eh, kind of interesting. They bring parts of infinite in but don't really give you time to play with it unless you grind for 100%. Hard say much without ruining it but the title is a big spoiler.
Time: 2 weeks 157.27 hours
Toy Soldiers(9.1 hours): Tower defense game set in the Great War and allows player take over of towers and some extra planes and tanks. Uh. 2 campaigns of 12 maps plus a 3rd shorter campaign all with the same units. Campaign and Campaign+ use the same freaking maps all the way through except now you are on the other side of the map but with the same tower positions. When I finally got to 6 hours and not being done with everything I started to dread playing more, finishing up Campaign+ and the Kaiser Battles was a struggle with my fortitude. There are in mission objectives to "unlock" stuff to look at but eventually I would end just surfing the web while toy tanks burst into cogs and springs. The Invasion campaign was a nice change and good length. 5 missions....??? But they brought in ray guns, knights with spears, and P51s that made flying much more enjoyable. Performance wise it is great, smooth zoom in and out.
Games Completed: 57
Time: 2 weeks 166.37 hours
I liked Toy Soldiers
Chivalry: Medieval Warfare(10.4 hours): Dude.....dude..........knights. I apparently decided to get back into the game when there was a free weekend. Chopping off arms, heads, and legs are awesome. The mechanics for edging blocks and parry function still escape me to a large degree. The game is great and is worth hours of play because you can have fun playing all classes even if you don't play them well. Whacking a group with a double sided axe and having their heads explode in a gory spray never gets old.
Games Completed: 58
Time: 3 weeks 8.77 hours
South Park™: The Stick of Truth™(10.4 hours): fart Bro SICK. This was a game that I have anticipated playing for about a year before release and since then I have been waiting for it on the cheap because I can wait a year for most games.....because of this stupid backlog junk. The story is what you have to expect in this game since it is South Park and what else is the show known for besides great plot and story development. So much of the game is just spot on for what you would expect and want from this game. Farting, poop, things up butts, sex, ew girls, jesus, kids being fuckshits. There are some elements missing which kind of makes you sad but there had to be reasons for it.
Gameplay is fairly solid. They implemented an attack/block scheme that feels sloppy at times and timing can be unfair while using certain abilities. You can kill off enemies before some battles which without doing so would make them impossible. Half way through the game it seemed like there was a swift uptick in difficulty for no real reasons since all battles moving forward just seemed that much harder. I knocked out a bunch of the side quest but the 7 hour mark really started to drag due to quest chaining and rough battles. The puzzles and shortcuts were all pretty straight forward except for one stupid elevator that had to be fixed and it felt like someone overlooked it and never had a play tester check it.
Bought the game at about $17 with both DLCs, bought the DLCs because I believed in the game despite them just being classes and outfits. Next time this game is onsale get it despite Ubisoft publishing it.
Games Completed: 59
Time: 3 weeks 19.17 hours
Mark of the Ninja(7 hours?): Checked my time before I finished and I thought it was 7.04, profile says 5.3, and the library page on steam says 6? This is a sub 10 hour game if you don't go for many achievements and just work on finishing and doing some exploring. There is a New Game+ if you want to play this assassination puzzle game twice. I am not very good at stealth games so I was extremely worried going into this, but I like puzzle games despite being horrible at points in them. The 2D art style is well executed though there are some subtle background items as the game progresses that I missed until the last 30 minutes, spend some time looking at everything visually to get the full atmosphere. Kind of glad a I played it so I can say I have incase people want to discuss it but I am on the fence if I would recommend it to just anyone. To do everything in the game you will have to replay or do 1 achievement and then reset/die to continue properly(I think). eh, its fun enough. Play it if you got, wubububububububu I am a ninja.
Games Completed: 60
Time: 3 weeks 26.17 hours
Dishonored(8.4): wwwwaaaaaa Bethesda are you sure you can make a game. I remember when this game out and it was a big deal. Let a friend borrow my Dishonored shirt cause hers had vomit on it. Long story short I don't have that shirt and the person that was suppose to give it back to me still has it, that shirt was so darn comfy and free with my press pass that year UH I WANT IT BACK! That free comfy shirt was the best part of Dishonored. When the game first loaded I had to double check quality to make sure it was all the way up due to the models being such low quality. Infinite was launched 6 months after Dishonored. Infinite is fantastic with moving clothing and wonderful graphics while Dishonored has solid body clothing, characters that look like 40 year old farmers with unrealistic bodies, and what seems like could of been done on source engine. When I look at control panels and flat environmental surfaces and I have to remind myself this isn't HL2 and is in fact from 2012. This is a stealth game that seems oriented towards killing everyone so you are capable of doing all side quest and finding items, I went in thinking there was going to be the option for run and gunning.
There is a function in the game that results from your actions called chaos and even in levels where I killed no one I didn't have to it was still at a high level. I don't know; junk and stuff. The climbing function was really nice. If you thought you should be able to grab onto a ledge or use your magic to get there you could. There are several points where I simply climbed over everything to get through in a timely manner. Who the heck is the outsider? This is a character that is mentioned for important reasons but no one knows who is or what he really does. He just is there because they needed magic. The plot, story telling, and most of the characters are horrible. boo
Games Completed: 61
Time: 3 weeks 34.57 hours
YAY. I am not the only one who hated dishonored. Seriously fuck dat game.
I enjoyed the stealth missions possibly because the industry has forced me to have very low standards for stealth missions, the rest of the everything was sub-par, agreed.
Gratuitous Space Battles(5.6 hours): I have played through all of the scenarios a few times so it feels like enough. There is a surprising amount of DLC content to the game which feels kind of weird since a lot of the game is based off of build your own ship. You fight in sandbox matches with a fleet of ships you can use that are premade or hand built. Running through the "campaign" missions help you unlock building blocks and ship layouts. It is pretty fun to sit down and play a few matches so you can try some things and then turn it off for an early bed time. Worth a few bucks but I also know there are several people on Icrontic that would dig into this game hardcore given the level of ship customization.
Games Completed: 62
Time: 3 weeks 40.17 hours
From Dust(5.9 hours): Bought this game for a hat and the game play looked cool enough for the price. You are the breath and must help the men travel to the home of the ancients using totems, powers, and knowledge of earth junk. Most of the levels can be rather short if you can figure out how to overcome the challenges without much trial and error. This is actually 170% play through since I lost an old save. Getting through half the game is easy and should take less than an hour, the last 5 maps were a pain because they all involve timing elements. There are enough game play mechanics to make you struggle with a well executed plan because of things like fire and water. A one sitting game, with uPlay.
Games Completed: 63
Time: 3 weeks 46.07 hours
Knights of Pen and Paper +1(14.1 hours): I didn't finish this game but fuck this game. Seriously. I wish this game was a real object so I could fuck it with a pipe to its face I HATE YOU. There are more campaign quest and when I check to see where the end is after getting sent to a dungeon that was a stupid jump in difficulty I said screw it I spent enough time grinding for no reason. AAA!! for the awesome at least game some enjoyment to the grind this is pointless in the regards of you have to take your entire party up 10 more levels, 35 to 45, just to have a slim chance for completion. And all loot that is dropped can be bought in the store so drops are pointless.
This is a mobile game that has been moved to steam but it is a massive grind fest, to level the blacksmith up 1 level I spent half an hour travelling and collecting grind stones then spent another hour gold farming to take a 60% chance at smithing 2 items. I stopped reading the quest information since it is not required to do all the gofer questing, mob grinding drop questing, or 4 stag battle sequences. They wrote in a bunch of meta gaming for reasons unknown. You spend a time uncursing the king because who knows, and if it isn't the king it is some old man that later turns out to be the kings older brother.....again. Completing all of the side quests in the game also won't really cut down on the amount of grinding you will have to do but getting the bulk exp means your grinding for gold to manufacture weapons will be unnoticably shorter. The DM sucks at his job, and I mean the developers, in building a campaign. You cannot turn off the player banter so you have to see "Why do we keep coming back here" for 15 hours. Currently I am playing another game that half of it is grinding for EXP doing hack and slash and it is boring but fine because you don't have to spend the extra 2 hours clearing all stages in 1 world 100% to beat it, but it makes later battles easier so there is a direct reward.
If any of the game devs see this I am flaming with the review but is also because the game can be cut in half, and it might be enjoyable. Watching 60's movies while playing your game doesn't mean I am doing it because it was good.
I might finish this game at some point, maybe. GOSH I WANT TO PUNCH THIS THING IN THE FACE! ITS NOT EVEN SO BAD IT IS GOOD!
Games Completed: 64
Time: 3 weeks 60.17 hours
Finn and Jake's Epic Quest(4.1 hours): Me like adventure time. Me have several AT items. AT games almost never go on sale and when they do it isn't for very much. Bought this one and figured I would knife storm my way through this hella hard because I am the cool guy. Premise of the game is that you are now inside of a game and you have to collect artifacts to save BMO who is being held hostage. There are four worlds to fight through that have 6 dungeon stages where you collect EXP, coins, and pages of the Encirdieonmewhatsit that are really spells. You can get asked to defeat certain things, find x number of pages, or collect x amount of money as side quest. There is a leveling process to become stronger and get Billy to upgrade your gear. Hack and slash your way through the levels. The mini map sucks because it only tells you where the enemies are and you can use it like a regular map to find your way around which is super annoying since after the first half of the first world the maps become complex enough that you can get turned around easily. The boss's have a stupid voice because apparently the only people they paid for this game were the voice actors for Finn, Jake, and BMO????!!!! Anyone who likes AT and punching dwebs in the face should get at least an hour out of this game but if you are bored with the ever increasing grind and unfair stun lock from some enemies you can just run through and only fight the bosses which is amusing when you realize that enemies can't attack you if you never stop. There is some replay ability if you can ignore how you are suppose to go back levels within a world and several of the map and character glitches. Pricey but if you collect AT at all then I think buying at least one of their games is worth it and this seemed good enough.
Games Completed: 65
Time: 3 weeks 64.27 hours
Defense Grid 2(4.2 hours): [Spoiler at the end]The story mode is pretty short, you can play it in an afternoon and then still have time left over. The graphics took a nice jump, though the aliens seemed smaller meant that I cared little what they looked like. The story continues from the last game which amounts to aliens have overrun most of your colonies and you need to fight them off. More characters are introduced with an assortment of personalities. There is work done to make you have a vested interest in the AIs but it only half works. Each mission has a loading screen with great information and I found that the most compelling for driving the story. There are tooo many game modes, seriously like a metric f*** ton of them. I finished story mode and it didn't have all my card drops for the game so I had to play other modes to finish that up which I found humorous. You can do multiplayer, co-op, limited resources, limited towers, etc, etc, etc. I didn't buy this early because I felt the game was getting over priced despite DG1 being a massive jump in tower defense games and seems to have made the entire genre diversify through experimental games. DG2 is a hype game for DG3, for realz I don't care I played the game one bit but the ending I screamed because DG3! The build a maze maps were lack luster. When you give really small areas for 1 or 2 turn backs it looses its effect since you can build poorly and it doesn't hurt you. But when you have the entire map a build a maze you have to know how to optimize before you get started, DG2 failed at this when I felt so frustrated in DG1 screwing one piece up resulting in me having to restart the mission.
Games Completed: 66
Time: 3 weeks 68.47 hours
Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons(2.6 hours): Bro this shit is sad, for realz. You need a controller for this game because you control two characters at the same time. I remember when this game was released and everyone loved it. The game is kind of fun but it is very enjoyable because it is a nice little game. Everything is very polished about this game which I think is one of its primary selling points. All the modeling is super solid, collision is fantastic, all the little details like foot steps and shadows are present. My only words on the build of the game falls to the wood chips from that one action were squares?? and you would make jumps but all of a sudden the character would jump wall falling to grab something but it is a none issue. There is a fake language in the game but the characters pantomime what they are saying. This is starting to bug me partly since I stopped watching movies with any subtitles so foreign languages I have no idea what is being said and it makes me pay attention more and delve into the characters more. Use a foreign language or just pantomime with music over top because when there are only a dozen words said they get reused but incorrectly in dialogue and I notice it.
The game follows two brothers that are sent on a mission to find a plant/tree/healing potion for their father that is on his death bed. You face challenges reaching your goal that need to be solved by brothers that work together. Controls are extremely basic; both triggers and joysticks are all you need. The camera can be rotated or you can leave let it wonder because the game keeps rotating it screwing up your movements. Leave the camera alone, come on guys. This game covers all the bases for crazy dark things: grieving, bullying, kidnapping/slave trade, war, religious zealots, death. Then when you think they have taken the darkest turns they are going to it goes farther and you wonder "why are you making me do this really stop I don't want to". If you have this game sit down and play it and experience it.
[spoiler]
One point in the game I thought it was about to turn from "A Tale of Two Sons" to "Two Brothers ménage à trois"
But in the end it was really about the founding of House Greyjoy; THAT WHICH IS DEAD MAY NEVER DIE!
think about it
[/spoiler]
Games Completed: 67
Time: 3 weeks 71.07 hours
Alice: Madness Returns(12.0 hours): I have wanted to play this game for about a year but still refrained from buying, this winter sale I bought several games I had waited on. You can have multiple games going within Alice so that means you have a fairly annoying selection screen despite having only one user which in turn means you can't just click back/back/exit since it exits you back to game/user selection. WHY??!?!?!?! WWWWHHHHYYYYY?!?!?!?! Make it harder to switch the user that is active and easier to quit. who plays and then says you know what John wants to play for 2 hours after me......no one does that they quit the freaking game you lame wads.
Playing this after Brothers is pretty great since this is another visually polished game. Everything has its place, models are solid, the environment has great depth, and the jumping is solid despite spending a lot of time floating over open space. Bro, come bro listen.....you fart butterflies when you jump. Dude I ain't pulling your let, butterflies. :awesome: Now Alice as a character is great because she gives a strong contrast to all the others in the game. Most people are "off" or they are wonderland creatures but Alice has features that seem normal except her eyes and she feels like the only balanced and sane person. Helping her out is the fact she is pale and raven haired which I am a massive sucker for. But you go through the game and collect teeth, bottles, and memories. No idea why teeth, what the bottles do, or if getting all the memories does something for you. There is little explanation on what the side items in the game do or even how you access the weapon upgrade screen(esc>weapon upgrade). Seems as though they relied on people having played the original game since there are references from the start to it.
The first two stages are rather straight forward with jump, fight, errands. Then when you get to the third stage, you think crap this is going to take me 3 hours because now the go fetch will be X amount longer but no they diverge. This stage just doesn't seem to fit because the colur pallet changes, contrast is poor, steps forward for the level don't give you a sense on the distance left to the end, and just ok??. One of the more important things is they introduce new segments to the level that will get used later, it is fun and interesting. But what happens with this introduction is a flaw that just grinds on you in later levels and that is camera angle. The cool new stuff they bring into levels to make them fun and have variance have horrible camera control. Points happen where the camera is locked in tight and then without warning you are given camera control. They do this and hide things behind so you are suppose to walk backwards off screen. Just a plain dick move; here I dropped you into this room and took camera control but if you walk back to this corner you can't see and press C you get something. 4th and 5th stage fall back in line but enemies have an increasing ability to stun lock you or their attacks are interrupts despite you hitting them. Also some nice scenes where you run away but they don't let you see where you are running because that isn't important, you watching what is chasing you is. Some times you will get hit and the camera jumps which causes you to look behind you. No idea on some of the later glitches but during stage 3 things feel different until the end.
This game is awesome. This game is dark. This game is fun. Play this game. Next time it is on sale buy it if you don't own it. I finished with 87% complete on this game because the extras make sense to get and it feels right to get them which is fantastic. I watch a lot of dark dramas that have unhappy endings and to play a game that tries to give you a mad experience with ever present despair is right up my ally. The art work throughout the game pulls everything together. Chapter 4 its creepy. Walking around towards the end and just saying "wow they put that in the game, madness returns for sure". Some elements feel kind of rushed. There were fights that I thought a reasonable player would have to take damage to win because the enemy just has these cheap shots but I always came through and built my health back quickly. Countering cheap attacks gets easy when you figure out the AI gets caught on edges all the time so you have something to level harder fights. Jumping puzzles so you can see up your skirt kekekekekekekeke. A game with a lot of element variation, strong cohesive art work, and a compelling protagonist arc make this fantastic. When I found out the screen gets cracks as you are close to death I knew the experience would be great.
Games Completed: 68
Time: 3 weeks 83.07 hours
PS. I know a bunch of the reviews have gotten rather negative with small blurbs at the end talking about the positives in the game but that is directed more so the reader knows the big suck points. Letting you know some of the good bits but making you discover what made the game enjoyable on your own.