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

[ejamer]

Mighty Switch Force 2 (Wii U) - I don't feel like this game got much hype, maybe because it was too similar to the predecessor... but I really enjoyed it. Level designs are fun with a nice level of difficulty. Just completing stages is easy enough, but beating the par times can be quite challenging because you need to know the level well and be able to get to the end with no mistakes.


Finished the game, although missed a bunch of babies and goal times. Won't actively push to get those, but will happily revisit the game and try to clean that up later.  Very glad to own this little game, and totally enjoyed my time with it so far.

[azeke]

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots:



The story and setting:
By the end, i found that i actually don't hate it. Sure, it's a clusterfuck, a complete mess crammed with all characters from all three prior games with nary a rhyme or reason aside from nostalgia pandering. None of the motivations make sense! But... i kinda liked it. Final battle (despite controlling like ass but that's MGS for you) was petty cool.

MGS4 is BIG on fanservice. They love to pat themselves on the back and constantly go "hey, remember THAT game? huh, how good was that?". Whether you're playing or in a cutscene you get "flashback" scenes to previous games. When i finished the game special counter happily reported that there was more than hundred flashbacks in entire game. One act (out of 5) is ENTIRELY nostalgia level set in the same location of a previous game. I think that overreliance on nostalgia somewhat cheapens the game. I think the effect would have been much bigger if i was a long-time fan and hadn't blasted through the series this year.

The setting is pretty interesting. It might be the best thing about the entire game. Dystopian world that is completely depednant on constant war, pivate PMCs dominating over conventional state armies, fetishization of all things military, turning populace into barely sentient fodder for war economy:

Commercials are very much like "Would you like to know more?" clips from Starship Troopers and they paint a very interesting if bleak world.

Gameplay:
Game changes (yet again) controls closer to traditional third-person shooter (or at least PS3 versions of TPS with bumpers for shooting). It's annoying to play the series and each time having to adjust to new control scheme and they still can't get it right. Jumping, ducking, and lying down are still put on one button which leads to constant confusion when you lie down instead of dodging in the middle of a boss battle.

Compared to MGS3 you don't need to spend as much time in the menu, camouflage is now semi-automatic and there is no healing so it's back to MGS1-2 system where you heal by eating rations or just by lying down. You still have to manage weapons and items limited inventory though and it can get annoying especially when game for some reason will insist on giving you specific weapons and switch to it, just because Snake used them in the cutscene. There are weapon mods system but i used it just once -- to buy silencer for MK23.

Codec is also toned down significantly -- there are only two frequecies you can call and one of them is "fan-favourite" Rosemary who gives the most generic advices about my psyche and is completely useless. Ocaton is still good for some laughs here and there, but it's not enough. I can't even call Drebin myself, he only calls me when he wants to feed me yet another stupid Beauty and the Beast backstory.

Act 1 and 2 were petty good with you thrown into battlefield where you could directly change income of the battle. It's a pity you can only take side of the rebels in both acts. Act 3 was Assasin's Creed tailing sequence, hollywood style chase sequence and a few hour long cutscenes. Act 4 was nostalgia pandering time and Act 5 was a small MGS2 tanker style area with two bosses. It sounds petty bad but it was redeemed somewhat with cutscenes by the end.

Overall it was 6/10 attempt to tie all storylines from all games together. Was it neccessary to begin with? MGS3 is by far the best game in the series because it started from a blank slate, it ignored the mindfuck of MGS2 and was so much better for it.

Then comes MGS4 and clumsily tried to tie it all together, which basically amounts to babbling "nanomachines" each time they need to explain something:

The ending has somewhat redeemed it and it was a strong and definite finale to the series and a character.

Technical problems:
Mandatory install i can deal with. But crashes and freezes depending on completely random factors are inexcusable. Game was frezing on me in the middle of Act 5 and i had to "fix" it by deleting game data and reinstalling it (takes around 10 minutes but it took me hours to figure it out). Apparently this just happens to some PS3s and it can even brick you blu-ray drive...

Bosses:
Bosses are usually the best part about MGS games. MGS4 has two and a half good bosses: Crying Wolf which was half decent and Metal Gear vs Metal Gear fight, maybe Screaming Mantis. All others were more annoying than anything.

The phase after you defeat BBs is weird, i don't know even know if i like it or hate it. They deliberately mix sex appeal of beaties dismantled of their battle suits with horrific depictions of war but i don't either worked for me. Especialy with all those terrible edgy backstories they gave them.

Final battle, while cool, has so much QTE it's barely a battle.

Some cutscenes in the middle get super tiresome with all badly acted melodrama, but action cutscenes with Raiden were cool and final cutscene tying all together was neat.

I really liked how game was showing me stats after finishing each act -- that is super useful if you want to do non-lethal playthroughs. However frantic, action filled chase sequences in act 2 and act 3 especially are too hard to do without killing people and that's where i gave up on non-lethal run.

It says it took me 14 hours on my save, but you can easily make it 20 because i had to redo Act 3 in it's entirety because it froze on me near the end and i didn't save.

I was given "Bear" rank by the end. I liked how (FINALLY) you're given clear explanations for all these animal ranks. Now i finally know that "Iguana" rank means that i tend to collect all items on the levels. Bear means that i like to use CQC.

MGS3 > MGS1 > MGS2 > MGS4

MGS4 is still okay and worth playing IF you played all other games. GOTY though? Haha, nope.

[ejamer]

Dark Void Zero (DSiWare) - I had wanted to play this game ever since reading the hype on release that it was better than the big budget Dark Void game and a loving tribute to retro gaming, but never seemed to get around to buying it. I'm glad that I finally did.

The game doesn't take itself too seriously, offers a fun retro feel without falling into the worst design pitfalls common to the era, and even includes a chuckle-worthy backstory that deserves to be read. With a variety of weapons to try, optional collectibles and bonus challenges on each stage, and high score tracking there is a reason to try playing through multiple times. With only three levels it's a pretty short burn too - at least, once you get past the learning curve enough to stop dying frequently. (The game does offer reasonable checkpoints in each stage and auto-saves after you complete each level... but you probably will end up restarting once or twice until getting used to the controls.)

Is Dark Void Zero a "must play" experience? Not really. The game is short and the difficulty is uneven in spots. The whole retro-revival scene is strong enough now that better games are available if that's your thing. But quick, cheap fun is a win in my books. I do recommend this game for anyone who likes old-school 2D games or has a soft spot for NES-era gaming.


Batman: The Brave and the Bold (DS) - Reviews of the game are pretty accurate: it's a great game but very short. That probably made it hard to recommend when first released, but if you can find a cheap copy now and don't mind low-difficulty then I'd recommend it to Batman fans of any age. Just be aware that it has the same tone as the animated series: light and humorous, showcasing lesser known heroes and foes instead of being a gritty or serious action game.

[Ian Sane]

If you ask me to describe what happened in the ending in MGS4 my response is "uhhhh..."  People talk and talk about something or other forever and by the time it's over I forget what the hell the topic was in the first place.  Come to think of it MGS2 is the same thing.  All I remember about the plot of that game was that they didn't let me play Snake and Otacon cries a lot like he always does.

MSG1&3 work because they're basically just dumb fun action movies.  "Bad guys have taken over this.  Go stop them."  There's weird twists here and there but the overall idea is pretty easy to grasp.  2&4 try to be intellectual, except they're written by the same 13-year-old-trapped-in-a-man's-body so they're confusing and dumb and dumb in the way that's annoying.

Though a big problem is that MGS2 is basically a big "**** you" to the fans but here it sits right in the middle of the series and cannot be outright ignored.  So they have to reference it in later games.  MGS3 could ignore it because it was a prequel.  Sequels cannot.  Sorry, stupid Raiden and his dumb family and Revolver Ocelot being controlled by someone's fucking arm have to impact the entire future storyline of the series because back in 2001 Kojima thought he was being all cute and clever by making a game that played the player.

[MagicCow64]

Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land (GB via 3DS):

I initially kind of hated this game, given how much I love Wario Land 2 and 3 (and Shake It! (4 sucks, though)). It occupies a weird pubescent space between Mario Land 2 and the full realization of the Wario Land design in 2. But then I got used to it and came to appreciate it's vibe. The power-ups are limited, but satisfying, though being tiny Wario fucking sucks, and it's bogus that taking a hit with a power-up drops you to this state rather than the non-spike Wario base state.

The game plays footsie with later mainstays, like secret exits, collectable treasure, and triggering world events that alter the landscape of previous levels. Oddly, though, it drops the secret exit design element for the last three worlds, almost as if the director got tired of the gimmick partway through (even though there's an entire secret world early on!). It looks pretty good with an impressively expressive Wario and detailed sprites all around, though with a lot of repeated tile sets. This is offset by some unique settings, like the pirate ship and rail road levels. Some of the platforming gets tricky as it goes along, and finding the chests is very satisfying.

But boy, was I friggin' disappointed by the ending. I'd found all of the treasures on my own, and was expecting some kind of secret final area or some such, but instead it just factors into a calculation that mildly changes the final cutscene. Which, incidentally, I was 200 coins away from getting the maximum. This had a pretty significant souring effect on the whole experience.

[azeke]

If you ask me to describe what happened in the ending in MGS4 my response is "uhhhh..."  People talk and talk about something or other forever and by the time it's over I forget what the hell the topic was in the first place.

You're better off not trying to understand the hack'n'eyed mess that is the plot MGS4.

I gave this game my full attention and it is still fresh in my mind and boy -- it's a complete and utter nonsense.

Half of the characters' motivations directly contradict with their own actions and the other half have no motivation whatsoever. They just do things because nanomachines reasons.

Finished:

Zombie Incident (3DS):

I got this game for few euros and don't think it was worth it. Though i apparently spent 7 hours playing it.

If only it wasn't so tedious. Jumping on enemies especially when they're fly just beneath the ceiling gets old very fast.

[azeke]

DMC1 (DMC HD Collection):
Finished finished. I S-ranked Dante Must Die mode (after doing the same on Hard mode).

Penultimate level with final boss alone took me two weeks to get right -- the time limit is brutal and boss patterns are highly random and disruptive. He stacks his attacks on top of another -- up to three and some combinations make not getting hit a complete random occurrence.

Tight time limit also forces you to go into extremely dangerous strategy to get some damage instead of just running away all the time.

S-rank time limit is 8 minutes on Dante Must Die and the best i could do was 8:30, thankfully i got enough points in other areas so it was enough to scrounge for S-rank overall.

After, i went into Normal mode and unlocked last entries in bestiary attacks book. It's kinda weird how that achievement for unlocking entire book is worth just 15 points, yet it's the hardest achievement by far, requiring multiple playthroughs and directly contradicting other achievements.

Anyway, i am "done" done with DMC1.

I also made an effort to finish DMC2 as much as i can. The only two remaining achievements for it are for beating 5000 and 9000 Bloode Palace levels. This is gonna be 4-5 hours commitment, and i don't know if i have it in me to actually do it.

I specifically wanted to finish other DMC game to concentrate fully on DMC3 more which requires an even bigger time commitment because of it's astounding depth.

[azeke]

Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops:
This awkward fanart i think somehow fits well for this game:


18 hours which is i think the longest any MGS took me. Final rank is Kerotan -- i am guessing that it's not good, because i was dying a lot. There isn't much of a reward for doing no-kill run, so i didn't bothered and killed most of the bosses with lethal weapons. In regular missions i mostly tried to go with tranq gun and regular old close quarter combat, though sometimes i played with a character with low CQC stat and it kinda sucked.

Main problems of the game:

• controls. Thanks to PSP, no matter how you configure it, one of your "control sticks" is going to be digital. So you're sacrificing either movement or aiming. I put movement on analog and that made aiming for headshots very awkward.
• managing an army of rebels gimmick gets old. It's MSG3 menus all over again. At least it's cool to play as someone other than Snake once in a while.
• overall structure, with small levels and all campaign divided between small missions. Often these missions were forced to pad game's length like coming back to the same area several times just to find the map and unlock new area.
• all Portable Ops bosses are of "boring MGS boss" variery -- think Ocelot, Gray Fox, Liquid, Volgin, Vamp and so on. You just run around and shoot them when there's an opening.
• dragging bodies is obnoxious. I suspect a huge portion of these 18 hours was me dragging somebody to recruit him/her.

I kinda liked the story and comic-book style cutscenes. Also that credits song:

I barely noticed any other credit songs in the series, but "Calling to the Night" is really, really good.

[Triforce Hermit]

Psychonauts: I can't remember the last platformer/collect-a-thon I have 100% in a while. This game lives up to a lot of the hype people give it. It is creative, has great character personalities, good plot, etc, all the praises it usually gets. Black Velvetopia, despite speed running through it my first time, is my favorite level simply because of the art design. I found the ending overall to be really nice.

However, the game suffers from "some" problems. First of all the mouse and keyboard are a TERRIBLE means of playing. I luckily have the patience to learn the controls, but they are infuriating when you first start out. Telekinesis, especially when it plays a role in boss fights, it rage inducing because of what a pain it is to use. Second of all, the first boss in the game is actually the most difficult one. This being due to unavoidable attacks + hard to use controls as you just started the game make it really irritating.

Some....scratch that, ALL OF THE PLATFORMING IN THIS GAME IS AWFUL! Trying to balance on ropes, using trapezes, grinding on rails, sliding down hills are all horribly controlled. It made me resort to using the levitation ball to actually skip a lot of these sections. You see how bad it all is in the Meat Circus at the end of the game when you have do a quick run through an assortment of the crap. Given it is not as difficult as people say (whiners), but it is still downright terrible.

Overall, great game, but so many minor nuisances make it hard to enjoy sometimes.

[Triforce Hermit]

Valkyria Chronicles (9.75/10) : Short comment on the story. Its not anything revolutionary, but it is one of the best love stories (personally) in a very long time and a simple war story. It did a good job of keeping my attention and the bonus maps kept the story flowing very well and not seem abrupt (except the beach vacation one).

Moving onto the gameplay, this is one of the best Tactical RPG systems I have ever seen because there is a lot of room for creativity, devising strategies, and planning. You want to get A ranks? Well there is no set way to do it. The world is your oyster here and your mind is very important, more then the levels of your units (more on that later). There are tons of possibilities with class loadouts, creative exploitation of game mechanics (smoke grenade are a good example), and orders. I did use a walkthrough for a large portion of this game, but I found myself messing up instructions or the instructions not working. So what I did is make my own improvements to their strategies and found a way to do some of these in less turns. And unlike some other games where you can get a "god loadout" (Fire Emblem Awakening and Bravely Default come to mind), most maps have their own unique feature that this is prevented, therefore most maps aren't too boring or repetitive. Quickly on leveling, it isn't what a match rides on. You can be lvl 20 on a map with lvl 8 enemies, but still lose your A rank easily because of bad decisions.

Bad points about the game. 1) Some maps are way to stupid. Put Rosie here, use up all but two turns. Then put Alicia out and win. Another example is just putting Alicia out and only using her and getting an A rank (and I did this several times). 2) Most of the special weapons you hunt down aces for are completely worthless. The only notable weapons are the ultimate flamethrowers in the game, which are pretty much it. Otherwise there are like 8 sniper rifles that are worthless. 3) To get A ranks in most maps, it relies HEAVILY on the save/reload function.

Side note: The anime is garbage. Welkin is a retard and Alicia is a typical tsundere which was painful to watch.  Valkyria Chronicles 2 is supposed to be trash. Valkyria Chronicles 3 is supposed to be decent, but Sega won't internationalize it. So Sega hit gold once and then ruined it basically. Sounds about right.

[ejamer]

Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii) - Played through the game along with the recent RetroActive event, and really enjoyed it overall. 


The pacing is too slow initially and has some odd moments right up until the end, the Wii controls are rather disappointing (enough so that I'd much rather own the GameCube version), and despite some strong dungeon design the game wouldn't rate in my list of "Top 5 Zelda Games"... but all of that negativity fades away when I think about the overall quality of the experience.


Anyone who hasn't played it should try to find time. Despite minor flaws, the game holds up extremely well nearly a decade after release.

[Evan_B]

Mighty Switch Force 2 (Wii U) - I don't feel like this game got much hype, maybe because it was too similar to the predecessor... but I really enjoyed it.

I firmly believe that Switch Force 2 is one of the better, if not best, games on the eShop. 100% par times was a nightmare but gives you an appreciation for the mechanics and level design, which are all polished much more than the original.

Also, the soundtrack is silly and bizarre.

[Soren]

Mighty Switch Force 2 (Wii U) - I don't feel like this game got much hype, maybe because it was too similar to the predecessor... but I really enjoyed it.

I firmly believe that Switch Force 2 is one of the better, if not best, games on the eShop. 100% par times was a nightmare but gives you an appreciation for the mechanics and level design, which are all polished much more than the original.

Also, the soundtrack is silly and bizarre.

The soundtrack is great, but I feel the game was just a bit too under the radar for its own good. Not the game's fault really. Some of the latter levels are really good, but I don't think they hold a candle to the best stuff from the first game.

[ejamer]

Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move (3DS eShop) - Wow, there is a ton of content in this game!

The main gameplay is a Pipe Dream type of game - you place (or sometimes move/rotate) tiles that provide a path for your character to walk on, trying to help them get from the starting tile to the goal. If your character falls off the board, bumps into a trap, or runs out of time before getting to the goal you will have to start over. There is more to consider once you start playing, but that's sufficient for a rough overview of the game.

When you start playing, you soon find there are four different modes available, each that tweak the rules slightly to provide a different experience. I actually preferred either the purely action-based Mini Mayhem or the puzzle experience of Puzzle Palace over the slightly more random Main Event. Giant Jungle uses the same rules as Main Event, but remains enjoyable  simply because the massive boards offer so much more flexibility for you to play with.

But wait, that's not all! There are also mini-games and a "toy collection" to unlock, and a full level editor that allows you to create your own levels and share them online.  The unlockable bonuses didn't impress, but the level editor is very nice and helps to ensure you'll never run out of challenges to try.

I got this game just before Club Nintendo shuttered, and am glad to have picked it up that way. It's a solid experience overall, and they cram a ton of different modes into the game, but somehow it still felt kind of disappointing... Maybe that's because the so-called Main Event mode was the least interesting one for me, or maybe it's because I miss the excellent DSiWare Minis March Again! gameplay.

Still an easy game (and series) to recommend for any puzzle game fans though.

[Evan_B]

I finally finished Box Boy. Loved the small portions of gimmicks they fed you, but they never felt like they built on each other very much and the game kind of felt like it dragged on. It's a great but though, tons of content for a relatively cheap title.

[azeke]

Uncharted: Drake's fortune:

Liked:

• Indiana Jones setting
• lush jungles
• one puzzle where i was climbing inside of a church. I love, love, love sequence like these, it's by far my favorite things to do in Assasin's Creed. Too bad, it was literally just one occurrence.
• in-game achievements unlock skins and even cheats.

Hated:

• shooting and idiotic melee "combat"
• overall lack of polish. Ubisoft's games like Prince of Persia and Assassin's Creed are often rightly criticized for lack of polish, but Uncharted 1 is even jankier in it's platforming and general feel of the movement and camera.
• Often great visuals are ruined by textures loading on the fly (not as bad as RAGE was, but still pretty distracting).

Meh:

• fun, lighthearted atmosphere of the game that is in cutscenes is ruined somewhat by hordes of enemies you have to slaughter your way through. It's even more jarring when you open up a catacomb where you are sure nobody has been for thousand of years and OF COURSE there are a bunch of pirates waiting for you there.
• jet ski sequences. Last one where you fight against the flow had atrocious controls.
• zombies. But i write this off as Indiana Jones homage because these movies also regularly have jarring supernatural stuff happening near the end.
  
• treasures not actually showing up in game, they just blink but you don't see them until you pick them up.

[lolmonade]

Picked-up The Walking Dead: Season 1 Complete edition on PS4 back when it was on sale for about $5.
For the few under a rock like me that didn't know, you play as Lee, a convict who gets freed on the way to prison during a zombie apocalype, who encounters a girl whose home alone and decides to take her along to protect her while looking for safety.

I'm not typically one for Zombie apocalypse games, but this game's narrative only uses it for a backdrop & source for tension, this kind of story could be done for about any sort of survival scenario because the story is more about making hard choices for the sake of surviving & protecting Clementine.  The game establishes some very tense moments through dialog choices and situations where you have to make quick decisions under time constraints, that gives you the impression of your choices having consequences.  The characters in the game will often make you choose sides between other survivors as well, possibly dictating how they react torwards you and what'll happen to them (I can't confirm this, as I haven't had a chance to play through it again).  It doesn't seem like the choices you make in the game affect the overall narrative as much as which NPCs align with you, but I wouldn't say that's a mark against the game, given the narrative is more about the relationships you foster with other survivors and how events shape your relationship wtih them.
 
And that's probably the game's biggest strength - how well is fleshes out characters (with the exception of a few minor ones).  Most characters have a pretty well defined set of personality traits/flaws, and while their dialog or actions may surprise you at first, upon retrospect, they make sense with context of their core character.  Ones which aren't as well defined are mostly due to the limited amount of time you spend with them in the game.
 
From an "adventure" game standpoint, the game is pretty simple, which for my sake works relatively well.  I think it would hinder the narrative if the puzzles were so obtuse that you spend an inordinate amount of time scouring the levels for an obscure item that didn't make any sense.  There are primary tasks which draw the story forward, as well as usually a side tasks you can do to draw favor from side characters that seem like they could also shape their opinion of you.
 
Overall, once this game sunk its teeth into me, it wouldn't let go of me until it chewed my corpse clean.  Absolutely engrossing story & brief enough to where even if it doesn't grab you like it does me, it'd probably be worth giving a run on a sale price.  Highly recommend, looking forward to season 2 going on sale so I can continue the story.  9/10.
 
 

[azeke]

Uncharted 2:
Graphics look insane, first game's visuals were brought down by textures popping a bit too often and overall low framerate, and U2 fixes both problems and still looks even better. More details, bigger vistas, more colours, more variety.

Give me a smoothly performing game and a great art-style with something to look at and that will be A+ for graphics from me (NOT resolution which is superfluous). Assasin's Creed II and Devil May Cry 4 were previous candidates for the most gorgeous games i played but U2 tops them and then some. Some of the vistas... Wow.

The biggest highlights were in later parts where i was left alone in a huge space and had to climb all over that place. The temple with mirror puzzle was just amazing.  Later temple was basically clockwork level from Mario 64 only encased in ice and gorgeous looking. Stellar art design.



Shooting is still a bother for me. It's still the same terrible cover based shooting on dual analog. Melee was changed a bit but it's still stupid. Grenades put on left trigger is an improvement.

Platforming is still wonky and overall "characters in hamsterball" air-hockey feeling is still there and from i checked of U3 they still haven't fixed models sliding on the floor and not really touching walls where they should be. Which is weird because they have great animations but can't fix such an obvious problem in all their game. Maybe they are so afraid of clipping -- they'd rather leave some additional space between environment and characters?

Outside of annoying shooting and other minor grips it's a gorgeous game. If you, unlike me, are decent with console TPS, it will be a great game for you even.

[azeke]

Uncharted 3: Drake's Something:

One really cool thing that Uncharted does since the very first game is that Drake has a great "pain face" and he often complains how painful his stunts are or like when grenade is thrown nearby he goes "no, no no!".

There is something humorous in seeing main character taking so much punishment and seeing his fear. It's almost like Jackie Chan when he winces and tries to subdue the pain by rubbing bruised spot.

It is a great example of both physical comedy and a very strong character establishing trick.

Gameplay wise U3 is nearly identical to previous game which WAS identical to U1 from gameplay viewpoint. The only two new things are shooting upwards as you hang from a ledge (i am pretty sure it was taken from some capcom? game) and ability to throw grenades back.

But graphics looks even better from 2 while still keeping relatively high framerate, no Assassin's Creed's "console standard 20fps framerate" here.

Game flows from setpiece to setpiece, each time showing great colourful environments, from London underground to stunning looking ship graveyard, to ship to plane (obviously both will be destroyed as you are in them, plane escape was especially cool with The Living Daylights ripoff homage) and so on.



It's quite obvious that these games are constructed around locations and setpieces first with everything else including story rigged on top of the string of planned vistas. Not sure why they need four script writers for this if the only thing they do is provide justification for characters to move from point A to point B and write some snappy dialogs in between. This method also stunts any characters development, and there is basically none. And not just within one game, characters in entire trilogy stay completely static. So while you do have some okay archetypical characters in there, i don't your story is all that hot, lady.

Overall, it's still some cool looking romp. It's still great sightseeing experience at least, Bay-type summer blockbuster.

Shooty bang-bang is still annoying for me, but i think i am getting better at this. Or they made it easier...

Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth:


It took me almost a year to finish it. "Thanks" to a series of power outages at home i was able to give my DS more time and complete the game.

Not quite sure what is even wrong with it. It has everything previous games had, but something is missing and the result is mostly boring.

[azeke]

Journey (PS3):
I liked it, i guess. It was like one of those animated abstract shorts, where you can't really tell what exactly happened but visuals and music were great.

It wasn't anything revelatory, but it was an okay 2 hours.

Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS):
It's one of the most enjoyable Zelda games i played. Too many other games in the series sooner or later pissed me off with illogical puzzles, but geometrical nature of puzzles in Phantom Hourglass jived with me much more.

Simple act of drawing on a map, marking stuff, is very enjoyable by itself, like you are a kid who is drawing his own fake pirate treasure map and imagines his adventure.

Phantom Hourglass kept open-worldish nature of Wind Waker quite well, lots of things to do and collect and just sailing through ocean isn't as dull as it was in WW (in original release). You fight pirates, jump through random obstacles, fight back boarding parties, collect rupees, and salvage treasures (hi, Ridiculous Fishing).

This also allows for some non-linearity like i was stuck trying to enter goron temple (i was supposed to bomb random unmarked wall) so i quit and instead went into ice temple.

Ice temple had good level design and hook shot is an interesting mechanics.

I liked hammer in Mutoh temple, cool thing about it is that it's actually fairy holding it and you can attack any enemy from afar. Flipping puzzles with hammer was annoying at first, but then i stepped on one of them and saw that puzzle piece you're standing on won't flip and that makes these puzzles much easier.

Boss in Mutoh temple was cool in several ways. First of all it just looks interesting -- design is something out of Shadow of Colossus. Then this boss battle has a unique camera perspective that's like playing standard third person Zelda game like wind waker or ocarina.

Boss battle design itself uses the fact that only lower screen of DS has touch capability, so you need to change perspective by jumping high in the air so bosses weak spots can enter lower screen and you could hit them with your flying hammer.

Final boss was pretty cool as well.

Overall, great game.

[lolmonade]

Wrapped up Telltale's The Walking Dead: Season Two.
 
I found several of the new characters largely disappointing.  I've often forgotten their names throughout the span of the series until something happens to them..  Part of this is that their personalities are generally a bit bland, but the bigger problem is just how many survivors you encounter through the span of the 2nd season.  Season one's survivors were generally sparse with the exception of the starting group you encounter as the main character, with the survivor count not getting higher at that point.  In Season 2, you encounter an already established group of nearly a dozen people, and while not everyone survives, you keep encountering a new batch of people at every turn. 
 
That brings up a second grievance for me - In Season Two, there are just too many damn survivors.  Season 1 had you be a part of a desperate group's struggle to survive until they could find a safe haven or plan to exit the mess, with the walkers being nearly the only true threat.  Season Two went hard into the direction of "people being the real monsters".  What worked well in Season one was that the desparate situation with the walkers forced hard decisions.  The hard decisions in Season Two to me were largely due to people being shitty, which after a while made me more callous in my decision making because of getting fed up with the way the characters were acting. 
 
The pacing is challenged at points, too.  Season 1 was sometimes almost painfully slow, with spikes in the drama & tension, up until Episode 4 where all the **** just starts rolling downhill like a freight train, but it worked well in immersing you in those slow desparate situations where the story needed to show you'd die a slow death by doing nothing.  Season two rarely gives you a breath to explore, observe, or take in the events that have happened.  It's a constant stream of shitty circumstance coupled with finding a way out of it. 
 
And what the hell about the Kenny surviving Season 1 makes any sense?!?!  In whichever way the story is directed, it's almost heavy-handedly implied that Kenny sacrifices himself for the sake of either a) Being with Ben in his last moments & putting him out of his misery, or b) Dropping down into the building to boost Krista to safety and getting mauled by walkers in the dark.  I like the character, but to me it spoils the weight of Season 1 and also cheapens the opportunity to have a meaningful relationship with a new set of surviving cast in Season Two.
 
That's a lot of complaints, but honestly, as a whole, there's still a lot to like about Season Two.  Still does a great job of ratcheting up tension, making you make decisions where there's no "good" answer, and giving you the impression that your choices matter, even if they don't.  Its biggest problem has to do with challenges in pacing, memorable characters outside of the already established ones, and being the follow-up to a game that did so many things right.  A good following story & conclusion (hopefully) to season 1, let's hope Season 3 has a new progtagonist altogether with a new story.
 

[Soren]

Mighty Switch Force! (3DS)
Mighty Switch Force! 2 (Wii U)


Finally played the original 3DS thanks to Humble Bundle, and that gave me enough courage to return to the sequel and finish up the last few par time for 100% completion. I love this game so much, and I think I prefer the sequel to the original

[Evan_B]

I think that, despite some of Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks' flaws, they are inventive and clever Zelda games. However, thinking back on that Goron Temple boss, I don't remember Spirit Tracks having any boss battles that were as unique. While I do think Spirit Tracks is a better game, Phantom Hourglass does have it's moments, as well.

[ejamer]

I think that, despite some of Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks' flaws, they are inventive and clever Zelda games. However, thinking back on that Goron Temple boss, I don't remember Spirit Tracks having any boss battles that were as unique. While I do think Spirit Tracks is a better game, Phantom Hourglass does have it's moments, as well.

The DS Zelda games seem to get a lot of hate due to the controls. I don't love stylus-only controls... but the games were so well made that I felt it was easy to overlook any problems. Bosses were very well done, and offered some smart use of the dual screens. Glad to hear others speaking positively about them as well.

[Triforce Hermit]

Phantom Hourglass was great! Others felt that the Ocean Temple or whatever it is called was boring and repetitive. I can see that argument, but I disagree. It was challenging and the enemies at least kept my attention. The new floors were always exciting to get into. The later levels were especially well done and I loved the way you discovered them.

Spirit Tracks was boring. The pan flute system was bad. Transportation boring. The tower was boring and poorly designed, being a pain to go through. The dungeons were uninspiring. Going on underwater tracks was pretty, but...that it is.