Games completed 2022

First, I’m going to retroactively change Venetica to a 3/10.

And Stray to a 7/10.

I finished AI The Somnium Files last night.

Equal parts smart, confounding, perverse, and hilarious. It’s like an anime David Lynch sci-fi.

It’s also a very clever use of the videogame medium to tell a multiple branching storyline. As in, you have to experience many different parallel universes across a flow chart to discover the killer and reality behind its suitably small but focused cast.

I don’t think a TV show or movie could do what this games does because it would be a fundamental mess due to how non-linear it is. This pulls it off.

Brilliant, brilliant game. Although some may call it a visual novel with puzzle bits… Which addmitedly are the weakest part.

I’m gonna go for a very high 8 on this. Would be a 9 if the puzzles weren’t so trial and error

Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands

Now that was a pleasent surprise. I HATED Borderlands 3 but after my friend spent all year telling me how enjoyable this installment was i bit the bullett. It was very enjoyable. The gameplay is long in the tooth and just more Borderlands but the setting is infiitely more enjoyable. Esentially youre playing Dungeons and Dragons with Tiny Tina as the dungeonmaster and whilst the humour is referential and still quite LOL random its also tied together in a way it hasnt before. This is easily the best written of the fps Borderlands games.The highlights are the diverse biomes, the dynamic set pieces and surprisingly the excellent side quests. The small fables and stories they tell throughout the game are mostly memorable and plentiful and all worth your time… so if you like the gameplay of Borderlands then i recommend this one. Infinitely more palletable than 3 with plenty of hooks driving you forward where as 3 felt like a slog and tedious loop. The UI and gameplay is a bit tired now though. Also the table top overworld replacing the tedious veichle sections is very welcome and a nice touch. Still dont know why they insist going on with the Butt Stallion joke though

8/10

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Ass Creed Brotherhood - PS4 remaster

Enjoyed this. Not sure as much as the second game, but a solid sub sequel. Story was nonsense. Quite poorly told. Loved exploring the city and doing all the restoration stuff. Still a very smart looking game despite the funky eyes on some of the characters.

7/10

Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye

I was a little wary about this, Outer Wilds is one of my favourite games ever, but it does what it’s trying to so perfectly I couldn’t see how a DLC would fit with it. Turns out I should have trused the devs, as this was a brilliant addition. While being a largely self contained story, it intesects with the main game in some interesting ways, and adds some extra layers to the themes.

Although more linear than the main game, it’s fantastically designed and arguably has more interesting puzzles from a mechanical standpoint. It manages to add some awesome twists on the one planet you’re exploring. The atmosphere in some of the sections is incredible. The new river stuff is cool, the alien architecture is great, the music and sound design are spectacular. Despite the pokey looks, the game engine can handle some pretty wild stuff.

The story is once again brilliant, darker than the main game but still delivering some real emotional punches with no dialogue at all. The ending was another tear jerker, and getting there involves some very weird and troubling stuff. I’ll be thinking about it for a long time.

While having some flaws and a few boring and frustrating loops, as an overall experience I wouldn’t change anything, and the moments of awe massively outweighed the minor frustrations.

And it gave me an excuse to go through the main game again to see how it impacted the end. I’m sad I’ll never get to experience Outer Wilds or its DLC for the first time again, but what an amazing experience. I wonder if another game will grab me emotionally like OW and its DLC ever again. It would be kind of apt if not.

2 Likes

Ape Escape 1 - PS1 on PS5 (1999)

Top stuff. Really fun, daft and imaginative. Can be a bit fiddly but you get used to it, and the rewind feature on PS5 is a life saver.

8/10

Easy platinum too.

2 Likes

Tinykin

Basically a Pikimin if Pikmin were an N64 collectohon style platformer. It’s got so much charm and it was a delight to play although my enthusiasm did start to wane toward the end. Luckily it ended precisely around the time where I felt myself growing tired of it (around 7 or 8hrs in). Much like Kirby it shows its hand perhaps a tad too early and stops building on it but… the levels are such a delight to explore (the world you inhabit is someones house and each level is a different room and you’re tiny so you explore inside CRT TVs, monastrys made of books etc etc etc. it’s all very cute and very well executed. Visually it’s a treat - a real nice mash of 2d and 3d that looks fantastic. If you like N64 style collecto-thon platformers this is a very good one of those - it offers a middle challenge but you do need to think - the challenge is 100% figuring out where to go next but the way it breadcrumbs you with nectar (basically the games equivelent of coins) means you shouldn’t get stuck and frustrated. Sometimes a stage can feel a tad drawn out though which can get a bit tiresome.

Overall though? 8/10? Yeah 8. But the charm is strong. Just got a bit repetitive.

3 Likes

It takes Two (ps5)

Took us ages to beat this. And I’m always a bit drunk when we play it. Liked it a lot. V good.

That game eas excellent iutside of the narrative (mostly that teddy death scene which was just way too fucked up. If i had a young kid and they saw that id be mortified) but the gameplay is incredible. So much variety

Finished Cult of the Lamb yday and tbh I can’t see a world in which it isn’t my GOTY.

Bugginess has been fixed up after a dodgy launch.

It’s part Hades, part Animal Crossing/Settlers. And it carries both a good sense of humour but also some solid worldbuilding within that.

Since Hollow Knight nothing has hooked me quite so much. Get it.

I will dip back in im nearing the end but hit a progression breaking bug last week

But yeah that game is great

1 Like

Some of the bugs were infuriating: stuff that would mean the dungeon run I’d aced were null and void. But think they’ve finally patched properly. Absolutely gonna do a second run at this in a while. Think part of buying an Xbox with ER is coz I need something new to be addicted to now!

U didn’t biy elden ring physical btw as the Series S doesnt have a disc drive

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Yeah fallen order took quite a panning from some reviewers but I loved it!

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Don’t worry :smiley: it’s DLing as we speak

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From the digital foundry review, I wouldn’t expect much better than the PS4 version for Elden Ring on series s. It’s higher resolution but the performance is a bit wobbly.

Also, cos it’s digital only you may find it’s still cheaper to pick up PS4 discs of any games that aren’t on game pass if there’s something older u want to play.

So far so good on performance - load times in particular are mindblowing to me and suspect they’re a lot better than ps4

2 Likes

Good thing about this gen as well is you’ll find many games have setting choices between performance and quality. So one will be higher resolution at say 30fps, or lower resolution at 60fps.

Not sure if Elden Ring has that.

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i was looking at the settings and there are def some ‘compromise’ options so will lean on these

The load times are way way better its the main reason to go to the SSD based consoles.

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Guardians Of The Galaxy.

Not perfect by any means - the combat is a bit iffy, it’s a couple of chapters too long and the run-in falls back on endless waves of baddies - but it is absolutely loads of fun, and made me laugh out loud several times while playing. Great writing and voice acting, and really captures the spirit of the films, as well as the cosmic elements of Marvel comics. And a space llama.

1 Like