Topic: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?

[Khushrenada]

Quality Supporter of Phil's Posts: Khushrenada

[azeke]

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag: The Return of Adewale: More of the same: Freedom Cry (PC):
This DLC for AC4 actually has extra Aveline mission but it's very short and insignificant.

Main gimmick of this DLC campaign is that slaves you free contribute to your progression. The more of them you free the more upgrades and special weapons you unlock.

There are at least two obvious problems with that.

Firstly, the game that tries to present horrors of slavery itself treats slaves as a resource, dehumanizing them into mere units of measurement for your experience levels.

Secondly, slaves never run out. No matter how many of them you free, there will still be new cages and auctions and caravans of new slaves coming in. Not only this robs you of the feeling of satisfaction you feel when you "clear" an area in Assassin's Creed game, this also makes you feel you aren't doing a difference.

Outside of that controversial mechanic -- it's the same AC4: Black Flag. Music is different though. I actually like naval battle theme more than in original.

The only new weapons are guns. Adewale gets blunderbuss which is basically a shotgun that you can kill entire crowds with in one shot.

Because i was playing on PC i got to see what i was missing when i played AC4 on a console. And honestly, not that much. Yes, framerate is much better -- but i got used to "AC on a console" experience by now. Outside of that -- superficial lightning effects that only make picture worse with obnoxious bloom, volumetric fog and smoke that also make it hard to see what is going on, some physics on objects (like sails flailing on the wind which is stupid because that's not supposed to happen and realism aside it simply looks bad).

I didn't care enough to 100% it and bad full sync requirements didn't help to motivate me. I am guessing because the story is so short they tried to prolong the campaign with full sync requirements that are much more strict and BS than in the main game.

DLC for ACIII did crazy things not just with alternate history plot (evil Washington) but also by giving you crazy overpowered powers, Freedom Cry does nothing of the sort, it's just some more of the Black Flag.

[Phil]

I finished Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal last night, and I think it's a by-the-numbers platformer. All four characters are gathered so soon in the game that it makes the need to return to levels needless if you're just collecting everything, that is. I would have preferred the characters to unlock at a more stretched out pace. Anyhow, I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong gameplay-wise. It's just that the experience is so quick so fast, much like the speedy hedgehog himself, that it makes the $40 price tag really hard to bite down on.

[broodwars]

I have played through and finished my first run through Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy 13. I'm saving the bulk of my thoughts for tomorrow's NFR 51, but suffice it to say that it's an extremely flawed game with some spectacularly bland sidequests, but I rather enjoyed it. The combat system is excellent, and the game does its damnest to try to salvage something worthwhile from FF 13-2's story. It ends on a tremendously big note that puts a nice bow on the trilogy as a whole, with some nice callbacks to the previous 2 games. If you liked the first two games...you probably already played this, but if you haven't I recommend it.

[NWR_insanolord]

So it turns out the last time I put down Metroid Fusion, which was a while ago, I was literally ten minutes from the end. Finished it up just now, and I'll say that it's a fantastic package. It improves upon its predecessor Super Metroid in a lot of ways, but also does its own thing, and I think that's a great combo. Really hoping Nintendo gets around to putting Zero Mission up on the VC soon.

[BranDonk Kong]

Wow I never finished Metroid Fusion (or Super Metroid, Metroid Prime 2 or 3...or played Other M) but I did spend a good amount of time with it. I think I was actually playing it on my Xbox (I do/did have it for GBA though), in my opinion it makes a better console game than a handheld game. I need to finish it.

[NWR_insanolord]

It was only the second game in the series I've beaten, after Super Metroid. Something tells me I'll be going back and playing more of Prime in about four days, so that'll probably be the next one I knock out.

[Ceric]

I've beaten all of the Metroid games but Metroid, Metroid 2, & Zero mission.  Which ironically means I have a better completion percentage with Metroid than Zelda & Mario...

[Soren]

Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (Wii U) - 8/10
I loved this game very much, but it's a perfect example of what you see is what you get. This is all Captain Toad, all the time. Anytime the game deviates from the mechanics that makes a Captain Toad level great the game suffers. The bonus 3D World levels are terrible, the coin rush levels are fun but slightly pointless, and the Mummy Me mini-game (and it's hellish final level "Mummy Me Maze Forever") don't add much to the game. The main levels though are a masterclass and there are some expertly designed puzzles and levels within them. The replay value is very low, but for $40 this game works perfectly.


Advance Wars (Wii U) - 9/10
Finally finished the main story over the holiday period. This is a brilliant game, and though I lost my patience a bit at times, I attribute this more to my gaming habits nowadays. Had my younger self played this when it came out I would have sunk so many hours into it. The final battle was incredibly difficult but satisfying at the end.


Thomas Was Alone (Wii U) - 7/10
A very good story wrapped up in a relatively easy platformer. While the gameplay is simple there are several good moments that make the entire product worthwhile. It's short enough that you can get through it in one sitting but you'll want to play it in stints of 10-15 minutes.

[azeke]

Mega Man 1 (3DS VC and retroachievements):

Done. My routine is to play the game on 3DS and use it as practice of sorts and after i beat the game there, i go to retro achievements emulator (hardcore mode, so no savestates) and beat the game.

I could go for more achievements (like beating Yellow Devil with no damage, i can consistently do it on 3DS) but it took me too much time as is. I basically dedicated my entire evening to finish it in one go.

Playing the game that started it all made me think of how ideas established in this game were put into the foundation of so many other games and series:

Level select: this not only gives player to freedom to tackle levels in any order he likes, but more importantly this adds a lot more to level and boss design.

Every boss (at least in the level select) has to be designed to be beatable with default weapon, because player can pick him as first level. But player can also go back and replay the level and the boss with different weapon only to discover that it now feels completely different. This adds tremendous replayability.

To this very day, games like DMC, Bayonetta and W101 are designed with that in mind -- all bosses are designed to work against ALL weapons in the game, even if this is early boss and the weapon in question you only get around 90% into the game. Discovering that first boss is extremely weak to late-game weapon on replaying the level is incredibly satisfying.

Defeated boss = weapon for you: this is not only the trademark of Mega Man, but is also one of establishing elements of DMC series. As a reward for defeating the boss you get it's weapon. This not only gives emotional boost but also tremendously widens the gameplay

Now that you have multiple weapons with different properties, you're free to experiment and try out all kinds of combinations of weapons and enemies. This mechanic also forces designer to create some REALLY different and distinctive bosses and their respective weapons -- you simply can't go with "sword 1", "sword 2" with that approach.

This formula gave us three headed dog that turns into ice-nunchucks and a vampire lady that turns into electric guitar so you can kill enemies by rocking out. Post battle cutscenes where boss turns into a weapon and main character tries out it's abilities for the first time have become one of the most satisfying and funny things Capcom ever done.

So yeah. Mega Man. It's a cool game, somewhat janky in places, especially where these guys are involved:

Not only sometimes you're forced to wait until they come down for you, the game sometimes glitches out and you can fall right through them when they shoot.

Boss design could be a bit tighter in places -- like Gutsman feels way too random and there isn't much you can do if he decides to come at you.

Controls. It's crazy when people say how Mega Man has no inertia. To me it always felt like he slides like a cow on a ice track. After i stop holding right he still slides a few additional pixels forward and this has always bothered me -- especially in places where you have to stand just right to not to take damage like udner cannons that hang from the ceiling and shoot in all cardinal directions.

Outside of a few bad spots it's still a great game with great music.

What's next? I could go to NES sequel (i've played some of it but didn't "finish" finished it), maybe try some of the GB games, i also want to check out "Powered-Up" remake of 1.

[Phil]

I beat Jet Set Radio on the Vita two days ago. It was a little challenging, but that was more to do with the wonky character movement and some physics-based problems. For instance, I shouldn't lose all my momentum when I boost jump onto a grind rail when I'm at a perfect angle.

I was thinking about getting all the Graffiti Souls, but I didn't realize you had to get Jet rankings on every level to do so. I thought they were all collectibles in levels like the ones I got.

[Ceric]

I want to play power up.  Shame you can't get it on Vita.

[azeke]

I want to play power up.  Shame you can't get it on Vita.

I tested it on PPSSPP emulator on my toaster on work. It runs fine, especially compared to Ultimate Ghost and Goblins that was running miserably..

[broodwars]

I have played and completed Grim Fandango. Twice: once with the terrible Tim Schafer-mandated Tank controls, & once with good controls.

Score without a guide: 0/10. Games like this are why Adventure games died in the first place. Just a lot of cryptic B.S., with puzzles often hidden in the Pre-rendered backgrounds and behind bad camera angles. Score with a guide: 5/10. If you know what you need to do and how to do it, it's a purely average story that's heavy on atmosphere, but is rather pedestrian overall.

[Phil]

I reached the end of Kick & Fennick. It's a Vita title that's a PlayStation Plus freebie game for this month, but I got the game through other means. It's really fun and has a fresh idea for a 2D platformer. You play as Kick and use a large gun to blast yourself to different platforms with the gun's recoil. It opens up to some very tricky midair launching using the recoil to avoid hazards and the like.

I will link to my review in case anyone is interested in playing the game.

[broodwars]

I reached the end of Kick & Fennick. It's a Vita title that's a PlayStation Plus freebie game for this month, but I got the game through other means. It's really fun and has a fresh idea for a 2D platformer. You play as Kick and use a large gun to blast yourself to different platforms with the gun's recoil. It opens up to some very tricky midair launching using the recoil to avoid hazards and the like.

I will link to my review in case anyone is interested in playing the game.

I've been playing it as well. I'm not fond of how finnicky the platforming gets once they introduce bounce pad chains in the 4th chapter, but it's a pretty interesting game overall. Game's more than a little buggy, though: I've had the game force me to replay missions because it didn't save when it told me it did.

[Louieturkey]

I beat Epic Mickey 2 with my son last month.  We had a blast.  He enjoyed it so much he wanted to start over.  The controls can be annoying in some ways and some parts of the co op make the game easier and other parts make it harder.  The biggest issue with solo play is getting Oswald to do what you want.  The issue with co op play is that they add in mini games for Oswald that aren't there in solo so it adds time.  It's almost faster to play solo and just drop out the moment one of those mini games is required, let the computer controlled Oswald do the task and then have the partner jump back in.

[ClexYoshi]

So, uh... I just finished Rogue Legacy. it's the first game I've played in a while that I feel super strongly opinionated enough about to really talk at great detail. not to take away from stuff like bayonetta or smash or anything but... Rogue Legacy was an emotional roller coaster, and it's a game that I still am not sure if I really liked or not, but I feel making a forum post here will help me sort this out.

The idea of the procedurally generated... almost anything turns me off, but especially the idea of the roguelike, which has the twofold effect of layering level design like a kid who dumps out all his legos and just snaps the ones he has in reach together as hastily as possible for no regard for... much of anything, really. then you have to combine this hapazard melding of things with even more random! random events, random character generation, random, Random, RANDOM! and if you lose? BACK TO THE BEGINNING! oh, and we're changing everything around so your past experience means nothing, shithead! you can in theory do it on your first shot, but you have to have the patience of a saint and the reflexes of a ninja, not to mention some good, blind luck...!

At the same time though, Rogue Legacy isn't quite as random as one might think. sure, the kinex that make up the castle get shuffled in and out and all around, and you are technically playing new characters of a randomized class with randomized sub-weapon(s) and a randomized set of traits, but the big thing is that you keep the loot you've gathered in your last run to spend, and there are plenty of very much permanent upgrades to be found around the castle that get randomly generated in each run...! In turn, mastery of Rogue Legacy is less about throwing yourself against it until you have a proper set of win conditions that the game has graced you with in it's RNG, and more about throwing yourself at the random castle with your random character and trying to come up with a game plan.

Are you going to go seek out bosses? try to clear as many rooms as you can for loot before dropping dead? have a character with a lot of survivability scout out the castle before locking it down with the magic dungeon guy? farm out the special fairy chests for stat boosts because the ammount of stat boosts you can buy eventually caps out? in that regard, it's less metroidvania and more pre-planning and getting a snowball rolling. it did a lot to just put me under that "okay, just one more run really quick" mentality, and I think that's why I kept playing for as long as I did.

That being said, this game is kinda a mess.

I dislike the atheistic quite a bit. it simultaneously goes for cartoony caricatures while at the same time having this very super dower tone in the music and enviroments. the heroes all have a run cycle that beats out the "I've **** my pants" run that the characters in monster hunter have for over the top stupid run cycles, as characters all basically do the Cossack all over the castle, all with their swords held out like they're playing Skyward Sword. Monster designs that honestly could have looked cool had there been a bit more contrast to the art style end up looking really bland, and rooms/enviroments get INCREDIBLY repetitive. The music all sounds like they took chiptune muzak (which if you know me, I'm a HUGE fan of chiptune stuff) and mixed it wtih a slap bass and... it honestly sounds as generic as this game looks. I suppose sound effect wise i like the sound design (besides maybe when you have a room filled with fireball launchers and the turret things and there's CONSTANT explosions).

This game also lays the references on heavy, what with the Hedgehog's Curse, the Barbarian King/Queen class being one giant Skyrim reference, the asteroids thing with Herodotus' Remix boss fight, the whole matrix joke with "The One" trait, etc... the one I did get a chuckle out of was when you went to check your hero's status on the pause menu and a Magic the Gathering card pops up with their stats.

I feel that there's a lot of things that were poorly thought out about this game. Class balance is all over the place, and made me truly regret dumping money into unlocking a couple of the character classes. until you know what the **** is going on and how you should play the game, progress will be PAINFULLY slow, especially if you waste money on something you're not going to need... at the same time, you might waste a ton of money regardless, as Charon, the ferryman stands watch at the castle and takes all your unspent money for you new heir, which really starts to bite into your funds.

The endgame is VERY poorly thought out. while the rooms have set enemy placements and such, the enemies will scale based on a couple of factors. there are 3 tiers of recolor of every enemy outside of bosses and mini-bosses. when the enemies scale enough, they upgrade in tier without really re-arranging their placement, and they keep gaining health... to a point even after you've bought all the upgrades and can only randomly upgrade your stats via stats you find in chests. you can either grind the castle in a very tiring fashion for these stat upgrades, or you can quickly realize that the rate unto which the enemies scale is stupidly rediculous and around New Game +3, you should stop trying to fight enemies, as they only give you useless money.

Sometimes that's a little hard because remember what i mentioned about the enemies upgrading in tiers when they scale and enemy placement not accomodating for this? yeah, the game rapidly devolves into bullet hell where you will assuredly die in one hit. did I mention you're not a spaceship with a bomb to get rid of projectiles in this game?

I also have to say, some of the vision impairment disabilities you can get on your heirs give me really bad headaches, especially far-sightedness, Near-sightedness, and Nostalgic.. the blurry filters mess with my head really bad, and the sepia tone with a wax filter over everything makes the Maya (the attic area of the castle) impossible to explore thanks to the thick, rolling fog in that area on top of the stupid old timey filter.

So, I dunno. it seems like it's a deep game, then you learn it's tricks, you realize just how little content is there, how poorly balanced classes are, and how much the depressing and moody music gets to you. I suppose it does make for a good podcast listening game considering how... kinda dumb the story is and how you just have to work at it until you know what room layouts are going to be like so you can take a quick fraction of a second peak into a room so you're not blindsided and prepare yourself to go in by attacking the stupid thing that's camping you on the other side of the door. I mean, I don't know what I was expecting out of a 'roguelike' 'metroidvania' made by the people that brought us such classics as Don't **** Your Pants. I'm very glad I didn't pay for this game, but rather got it via PS+.

tl;dr, My final verdict is not reccomended except for Charon, because that boat guy has made off with some mad skrillah.

EDIT EDIT: http://www.kongregate.com/games/rete/dont-****-your-pants FROM THE MAKERS OF ROGUE LEGACY

[NWR_insanolord]

it has come to my attention that S*it gets sensored here

Just a PSA, in case people don't know, the fucking profanity filter is enabled by default, but you can disable that **** in your forum profile.

[ClexYoshi]

Thank you, J.P.

[ejamer]

Moon (DS) - Not sure what to say about this one. It's a solid, but not spectacular, corridor shooter. A bit too easy (when played on normal mode) throughout, and only the last couple of levels seemed to really pick up and be more tense/enjoyable with more enemies and a full complement of weapons to scroll through.


The fact that it's a DS game makes you look twice, but I wish there was a greater sense of exploration or story built into the game because it feels like a great engine that could have churned out a better end experience. Does anyone know how this compares to the Dementium games? I played a bit of the first one, but can't recall if the story/atmosphere was better than in Moon.


That sounds kind of negative, but I did enjoy the game and play all the way through. Is the 3DS remake worth the $12 or $13 currently being asked? Probably... but I wouldn't personally go much higher.

[azeke]

Gunman Clive 2:


I've mostly played it on a commute, one level at a time and so i was able to prolong this rather short game over two weeks.

It's markedly better than first game.

It felt like with this game beril took EAD Tokyo approach and made sure every single level out of 24 had some kind of cool gimmick or surprise in it: dinosaurs, pandas, starfox levels, shinobi-style horse riding levels, local gravity distortions --  name it, and this game has it!

Bosses are also surprisingly good -- many phases, decently hard.

Level design is serviceable, but not particularly good -- way too many cheap places where you are absolutely have to take damage (especially with some alternate characters). Or maybe it's the "floaty" controls -- beril does have to cater to future mobile versions after all. Physics in gravity levels could have been tightened a bit -- but ah well.

Ninja Gaiden Black:
Beat Normal.

Obviously as with all good action games, beating normal is but a first small step towards discovering the game's intricacies and gitting gud FOR REAL.

After completing Normal i unlocked Hard mode, mission mode and one costume. I looked up conditions for other costumes and of course the costume i want the most (blue Ryu from NES Trilogy) is only unlocked after beating Very Hard. Fat chance of that happening any time soon -- i tried out first level of just Hard and got killed two minutes in. That first level is still great though.

Also rewatching intro for the game after completing the game is quite eye-opening simply because of how many enemies (and bosses!) featured in this intro you will never even see on Normal mode. That is a clashing dissonance with DMC style philosophy where you always get the chance to see ALL cast of enemies on any difficulty with higher difficulties amping the challenge just by changing the behaviors and/or re-balancing encounter with different monsters.

Unique things about Ninja Gaiden compared to say Bayonetta or DMC:

First and the most important difference is pressure that enemies put on you. In other games of the genre enemies are mostly punching bags for you to get S/Platinum -ranks. In Ninja Gaiden breathing room is extremely small leaving little to no space for "styling on enemies", you are very restricted both in which actions you can do without getting punished and in terms of very narrow timing windows.

Combat system is much easier to get a handle of, even easier than Bayonetta which already was very casual friendly: the gist of combat in Ninja Gaiden all revolves around a simple concept:
Attack countered by --> Block/counter countered by --> grab countered by --> dodge.

Or, even simpler -- you're vulnerable whenever you're not blocking (including when you're attacking). But if you block too much -- you will get grabbed.

There a quite a few moves, but as per usual, only a handful of moves are viable to use. If Bayonetta's only has 4 essential combos, Ninja Gaiden has barely 2 per each weapon.

NG also has much less emphasis on shooting. Default ninja stars can only be used to stun minor enemies and to shoot in the air to get extra hover time. There also a few bosses that force you to use arrows -- and it kinda gets crappy -- NGB is good only when it invokes the feeling of badass ninja slicing monsters. Just standing there aiming with a bow feels stupid (not speaking of how dangerous it is).

For defense -- there a lot of tricks to get invincibility frames like jumping and immediately dodging as you land or using special techniques like Wind Run. You are also invincible when executing Ultimate Techniques and doing Ninpo magic so these are somewhat easy ways to cheese the game.

Ultimate Techniques and essence chaining is when you absorb orbs that fall of bodies by holding strong attack button and releasing an invincible series of attacks that will instantly kill any enemy (-ies) if it connects.

Interesting thing about bosses is that they're both unforgiving AND have very little health. The biggest challenge is always learning how to avoid their attacks and how to get your attacks in without getting hit or grabbed which is much worse. But once you find the strategy -- they all die within a minute. Easier said than done though, because openings for both defense and offense are quite tight.

Another huge difference is that the game has no visible lock-on UI and no way to change the target. This might be a problem when instead of one enemy you will attack another, especially with Flying Swallow where the target is very often completely off-camera.

Camera is... interesting. It will be a shock at first but the most important thing about camera in this game is that you only need to press RT to recenter it occasionally and that is it! Just press RT from time to time. And never ever, EVER touch right stick during the combat.

All in all, amazing game and a very unique experience. Probably way too hard for it's own good, though.

Have some cool combo video, so that you could anchor my wall of text to a visual representation of how NG plays:

[azeke]

Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes (GC game on Wii):

10 hours something. Game gave "Hyena" rank -- not sure if it's good or bad...

The highlight of the game are boss fights -- the entire game is pretty much a sequence of boss fights one after another. Because game's clunky controls can't allow for an actual "action" (as in -- everything takes about five seconds to do, so it might as well be turn based) bosses spend most of the encounter talking to you instead of, you know, trying to kill you. And even if they deign to attack, their attack is usually a very delayed one, usually taking up to ten seconds to actually hit you.

And you need all that time because the biggest enemy in the game is again the controls -- not the bosses. You will spend more time fighting UI and controls, rather than enemies.

There is some decent boss encounters that were designed with these control deficincies in mind, but i can't help to feel that those efforts would be of better use fixing them, rather than on designing around them.

Voice acting and dialogues are okay i guess, outside of Snake's VA who sounds WAY too forced and constipated. Dialogue writing is infested with linguistic filler, such as "huh" (every other phrase no matter the character ends with "huh") or just Snake repeating the last words of what was just said.

Characters randomly starting to talk about the most random things would be cool, if it wasn't the most trite truisms that are presented as profound, deep thoughts. I guess it worked on illiterate teenagers who played the game at the time though, so i guess mission accomplished.

Game tries to make their villains compelling characters and it kinda works. Most of them spend their last minutes telling you the story of their lives, so that you could "feel" for them and so that character could go on about what is the meaning of all this. The writing is kinda eh during these moments, but some of them were poignant enough.

Final battle was very cool in both gameplay (for a change) and hype. The last half of an hour of the game is basically the ending of an Hollywood action movie with both amping up the stakes and the villain that just REFUSES to die.

After finishing Normal run, i can go for Hard difficulties or try Boss Rush mode. Also Twin Snakes has dog tags -- collectibles you take from dead corpses of the enemies, including bosses. On this run i only collected tags from Vulcan Raven and Liquid Snake, that's just 2 out of 28. And top it all, game actually has two different endings, so there is quite a lot of replayability there.

The question do i want to strugle with controls again?

Gamecube differences:
Due to placement of the button on GC controller, it's very easy to confuse with Y and Z buttons.
Start+A to call radio -- Why? Just Start doesn't do ANYTHING, no you need to use Start+A to call your friends.

Matrix style cutscenes exclusive to Twin Snakes felt so clashing with the rest of the game it was realy obvious where the original game ends and insertions start. I was playing the game and watching Let's Play of the original version ("Metal Gear Scanlon") at the same time to see differences -- and i don't think it really ruins original game or anything.

It's still the same game with better graphics and somewhat improved (but still shitty) controls.

[broodwars]

I have completed the first episode of Capcom's new Resident Evil Revelations 2 experiment on PS4 (and the other non-Nintendo platforms). Overall, it's....OK. It suffers from much the same problem RE6 had in that it's competent, but scattershot: the game's constantly cribbing from other disparate properties in a desperate attempt to find something "anyone" could like.

"Do you like rage zombies? We've got those!"
"Do you like slow zombies like the old RE games? We've got those!"
"Do you like Silent Hill-style crazy monsters? We've got those (and we even gave them the same properties as the Regenerators from RE4)!"
"Do you like the gritty, bloody environments of the Saw movies? We've got those!"
"Do you like the spooky nighttime woods environments of Alan Wake? We've got those!"
"Do you like exploring for secrets that can only be found with a special doodad & then upgrading your crap like in the original Revelations? We've got that (in the form of a pointing girl & a flashlight)!"
"Do you like shooting a zombie in the face so you can run up & punch them? We've got that!"
"Do you like the forced co-op play that no one liked in RE5? We've got that!"

It all just leads to a game that feels like it doesn't have an identity of its own. It doesn't go as far as RE6 did and have shoot-outs with infected gunmen, but it's still kind of problematic. I'd also harp on the visuals (which are at best circa-2009 PS3, which just looks hilariously out-of-date on PS4), but on the other hand this is only a $25 game. Allowances can be made. There's also the "spend BP for skills" upgrade system from RE6, if you're into that.

Oh, and if you were into the original Revelations' Raid mode, that's here too.

The one nice thing that the game has from the original Revelations, though, is that it has the TV-style cliffhanger thing nailed, and with these episodes literally releasing every week for the next month it works even better than in the first game. I'm wary of where this game is going, but I'm definitely looking forward to next week's episode.

[azeke]

Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance (PC):

16 hours. "Elephant" rank.

Controls:

Bad controls continue to be a major downside. While MGS2 introduces a lot of new abilities, actually controlling them is also a new kind of cumbersome.

This is especially emphasized by the weapon you get closer to end-game. Then you're forced to take down the final boss using only this weapon. It controls clunky even by MGS standards, which is saying A LOT.

I have no idea what is wrong with Kojima and why he insisted on making the most stupid broken control layout game after game.

Control scheme actually reminds me of Link's Awakening, of all things, because it has similar top-down view and two slots where you constantly switch actions alloted to them. Link's Awakening did this because it was Gameboy game with just two buttons. MGS uses this controls scheme because... Who knows.

I think one of the biggest problems of MGS1 and 2 is that they're top-down games with separate first-person mode. And you can't move in first person mode -- you can just look around and maybe shoot. This is a huge hassle. This turns boss fights where you need to aim precisely into a cycle:
1. Move around dodging bosses attack
2. When opportunity arises, enter first person mode and try to shoot the boss
3. When you see that boss starts attacking, you exit first person mode and run around some more, going back to step 1.

Two separate modes for top-down and first person view also impede your vision. You often enter the room or a corridor and face a guy right in front of you that you can't see because he is beyond the border of top-down camera.

From what i can tell by MGS3 demo, third game finally embraces full third-person camera so you can FINALLY SEE IN FRONT OF YOU WHEN YOU'RE MOVING. This is such a basic thing, but it took MGS three games to get there...

Stealth:
There were a lot of ways to cheese with stealth in MGS1, so it never really was super limiting. Not anymore -- most of these workarounds were "fixed" out. Alert level doesn't reset between rooms, so you can't just exit the room if caught and then enter it again to reset alert level. If you're discovered, guards call backup unit and you get swarmed by dozens of guys. Also even if you take out a guard, his officer will start to call him on the radio and will send a additional guys to check on him after a while.

It get so obnoxious at times it's much easier to just give up, lie down and die rather than trying to run away and then waiting out until alert level goes down to normal.

This is a schoolbook example of how smarter AI doesn't improve the gameplay but make it worse -- enemies are so smart and relentless it is a chore to do anything, even just moving around.

And this is a problem because 2 has a lot more backtracking than first game. 1 is more or less basically going from point A to B. There are only two instances in MGS! where you needed to go back.

In 2, you're going in circles constantly, looking for cards, weapons and other things that are gating your progress. And it gets annoying because again -- stealth is a chore in this game.


Bosses:
Bosses are worse than in MGS1. First of all there are less of them. And all of them, except for one, are copies of MGS1 bosses:

Olga is still done by the template of Revolver Ocelot.
Vamp is a complete rehash of Revolver Ocelot fight.
Fortune is a rehash lol you kinda fight her, but it is so short it's barely a thing
Fatman is that one original boss. He is very cool actually.
Harrier is a rehash of Hind D boss fight.
Solidus is a rehash of Grey Fox fight.
And of course Metal Gear Rays fight is a rehash of Metal Gear Rex fight.

Actually there is an ingame explanation why it is this way, but the problem is even those original MGS1 bosses weren't strokes of gameplay genius (because of barely working controls).

At least they're not really complete rehashes, since now you have more abilities and weapons and there a bit more ways to kill them. Or not to kill them because MGS series famously allows for completely non-lethal runs where you don't kill anyone, even bosses. I would totally go for non-lethal run of MGS, just like i keep replaying and replaying Bayonetta, DMC and W101 for hundreds of hours, but the problem is MGS controls like crap.

Another problem about bosses is that you don't even fight few of the introduced villains and the one other villain you never actually get to kill. It's just disappointing because after introducing such a cast cool characters you kinda start to savior the moment you face them and how it's gonna play out. And in the end you never actually fight one bad guy and the other one escapes.

Voice acting:
Raiden's actor tries the same inflections as Hayter, but instead of "trying too hard to sound badass" it sounds like "whiny" with him. Actor's not bad and actually there is one dramatic piece when he talks about his past where his performance is really good.

But then they also try to do some drama scenes with Otacon and it just feels too jarring because Otacon is a comedy character with exaggerated "weakling" voice and it just too hard to take seriously when he still keeps that same voice on when you're supposed to cry or something. Also revelations about abundant incest in his family was weird and felt completely unnecessary. "Just like my japanese animes indeed".

At least Otacon is still good for comedy, and in the beginning it was hilarious when he tried to imitate Mei Ling from the first game.

Music is a bit better, in the first one it was kinda generic. Main theme track really stands out.

And finally

The story:
I don't even know anymore.

MGS1 story was shoddy as well, but at least it was "fun".  Same how 24 is **** writing through and through but it's incredibly amusing and entertaining ****.

MGS2 is still fun and gameplay scenarios are often fun and outrageous and outrageous and fun, but then the ending comes and drops 16 ton weight on you.

And it's not like i don't understand it or something. Sure, it's complicated (way too much for it's own good), but i still got most of it in broad strokes.

The main problem is WHY. Why everything really? Not just why character X did this -- i understood motivations for the characters. I just don't understand what was the point of dropping it all on me.



It's not even THAT crazy -- it's just filled with the most random things all crammed into one messy ball of plot threads.

And the usual crap from MGS1 with spouting out truisms and pretending it's some profound revelations is still there -- it's just all loaded to the end instead of being sprinkled throughout the game.

Hey, guys did you know that children carry parents DNA? Did you know that DNA is a sequence of digital bits and thus our bodies is nothing but carriers of genetic information from past to the future? If you didn't get it from the first game, second game will hammer this message again, even harder.

For those who actually read some books, like Sirens of Titan or any of the Lem books this is trite and done subject. And done so much better too -- the ending to Sirens of Titan? Now THAT was some mindbending life-changing revelationary stuff. MGS2 after that feels like a fart in a bottle.

So to sum it up:

• Controls are still TERRIBLE. People who play these games for gameplay are insane.
• Gameplay is more advanced. There are lot more ways to interact with environment and more weapons which is good. AI is smarter, which is not good.
• Game is funnier and there are more random stuff which is a good thing.
• Story is just as stupid but not as lovable as MGS1. While finale of 1 was pure adrenaline filled parody of action movie endings, ending of 2 is basically the same as ending of Matrix 2 -- bunch of bullshit with pretensions of grandeur.
• Bosses are a lot weaker because most of them are rehashes of from the first game.

It's a still a good game at least. I had a lot of fun when game got wacky as VIDEOGAMES should.

But is it a GREAT game? Let alone the best game of all time? I guess it all depends how you illiterate or young you were when playing this game, i guess. If ideas presented in the game were something that you never encountered before and if they felt like some deep philosophy to you -- well i guess it worked on you.

Personally i found the plot too "been there, done that when i was 15 years old".