Topic: Rate The Last Game You Played

[NWR_insanolord]

VVVVVV - 9

I finally went in and played the full game, and it was fantastic. There was a Metroid-esque exploration element that wasn't in the demo, and the platforming was excellent the whole way through, though it got incredibly hard by the end. It only lasted a little over two hours, but it was a hell of a ride, and easily worth the $5.

[Pixelated Pixies]

Just completed Cave Story for the first time. Really great game.

I beat it on normal and got the so-called second best ending. I plan on playing through it again to try and get the best ending. I'd give it a 9/10.
 
I've got a quick question though, perhaps someone could help. I don't seemed to have unlocked any of the additional modes.

I understand the boss battle and time attacks modes still being locked (as i think you need to do the best ending for those), but shouldn't i have unlocked Curly Mode? Everything that I've read suggests that you just need to defeat curly in story mode to unlock this, which i have. Any information would be appreciated.

[KDR_11k]

N3II

So far not bad, having four independently recharging special attacks and swarm enemies that actually attack you makes it more fun than any other Dynasty Warriors-like game I played. Just the bosses I fought so far had WAAAAAAAY too much health. The first one might be justified since it's a brutal lesson in how to approach very dangerous enemies in the game but the second one had a very easy pattern and was pretty much just a waste of time.

[ymeegod]

Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep (PSP)

I'm a huge KH fans so I had high hopes for this one and saddly it's quite disappointing.  Where's all the humor & charm gone to because it's unlikely you'll find it this bland group of characters.  First off you'll have three new playable characters but the whole "friendship" relationship has been done multiple times before with the series so it's getting pretty damn stale.  The story is pretty weak and the new cast simply couldn't hold my attention.  First you have Terra who's like a big brother who's fighting the darkness withiin himself (though it never did state what was troubling him), Aqua the sister like character who's fun to look at but empty on the inside, and then there's Ven who ends up with a split personality/amensia complex.  Squaresoft barely even scractched more than a sentence for these characters backstories. 

As for the supporting cast, there's plenty of Disney characters, a handful from the Kingdom Hearts series, but only a couple from the FF series .  Felt like the B-team with the choices they made, Snow White?, Zack from FFVII series, ect. 

Now lets get to gameplay.  The level design is pretty damn weak, most areas are nothing more than straight lines and there's only a couple with good platform segments & puzzles.  The combat is about the only thing worth nothing because it's alot of fun even though it can be unfair at times.  There's certain ablities you'll need just to surive on Proud Mode because the bosses can easily kill you with a few hits.

---------
Another gripe, you have three characters with their own story mode but all that means is you'll go though each part of the game multiple times while facing the same monsters while trying to upgrade the same ablitiles you with your first character.  You'll get all these cool ablities just to restart the game with nothing but standard attacks.  Bleh.

I can rant on and on about how disappointing this game made me feel, yes it looks good and plays well but where's the plot and the charm? 

6/10

[vudu]

I've got a quick question though, perhaps someone could help. I don't seemed to have unlocked any of the additional modes.

I understand the boss battle and time attacks modes still being locked (as i think you need to do the best ending for those), but shouldn't i have unlocked Curly Mode? Everything that I've read suggests that you just need to defeat curly in story mode to unlock this, which i have. Any information would be appreciated.

If I recall correctly, those modes are unlocked from the start of the game.  The menu's setup a bit weird so it's tough to tell, but you can rotate the menu options to get to boss mode, etc.

[lolmonade]

Super Mario All Stars 25th Anniversary Edition - 7 out of 10 for new owners, 4/10 for anyone who owns any of these games already.

Everyone knows the drill by now.  I purchased this version because I grew up playing the Mario All-Stars versions of Mario 1-3 (cousins owned them, I was a Sega Genesis kid), and this is the first chance I've gotten to own those copies. 

The extra CD & booklet are still factory sealed, which should give you an indication as to how much worth I give those, so I'm essentially paying $10 extra over the VC releases for the updated graphics and the ability to own it on a disc.  Since my Wii seems to be on its way out (disc read errors left & right and other problems), it makes the extra $10 digestible, but I can't say it doesn't leave a bad aftertaste.

My complaint is the same as everyone else who has rated the game:  Why the hell couldn't they have added more games to the list.  Sega at least did one thing right in the past 10 years: include a ton of value in their Sonic Mega Collection (Also see the Legend of Zelda Collectors Edition).  If they would have added that much value in this re-release, and added say Super Mario World, Yoshi's Island, Super Mario Land Games, and possibly 1 or 2 3D games, I would have easily paid full retail price.

Even as someone who didn't own any of these games, it's still a toss-up as to whether I'm getting value out of my purchase, but they're still great games.  I can't see any scenario to buy this if you already own the games other than if you're a collector nut.

[KDR_11k]

Hammerfight (PC): Whoever designed that first boss encounter needs to be strangled. Boss encounters should NEVER be escort missions where the boss can instakill the escort target just by casually brushing against it!

[ymeegod]

Metal Gear Solid: Acid (PSP)

It's a spinoff in case you didn't know, instead of the 3rd person action game we all know and love it an card-based-turn-based tatic game?  Yeah not really sure what they were smoking because an turn-based tatic game could have easily have worked (Final Fantasy Tatics or Fire Emblem series) but making it a cardbased game was a bit to much of a challenge for the developer. 

The problem with card games it's just as much a game of chance than tatics.  You'll end losing both time and lives trying to either get the cards you'll need.  And in a few missions I had to restart from the begining because I didn't include a certain card (say C4 for example) which was vital in the mission, so I ended up losing 20 minutes to replay that map.  You couldn't add that cards once that mission has started .

Pro's: 
It has decent amount of cards and you'll have multiple ways of completing your tasks, the gameplay is fun at times and rather fustrating at times

Con's: 
The game felt more like an user-created xbox live arcade title than a retail product, the graphics are pretty weak and the cutscenes are just artwork with a few dialog sentences.
 
The story was a little to wacked as most MGS games are.  Just about everyone was a backstabbing SOB and it's gets predicable after a while.

Needs more guides because some of it I had to figure out myself through trail and error. 

I give it an 6/10; I'm playing the sequel MGS Acid 2 and it fixes alot of issues with the gameplay--so far I'll say it's a much improve version of the game and if you'll going try one you should start with this one, the stories have no tie-ins so you'll won't lose out of anything. 

[broodwars]

I've been playing quite a few games lately, so I'll just throw out some quick thoughts on each (most of which I've beaten by now):

Marvel Pinball - The tables could use a bit more variety, 2 of the 4 are too claustrophobic for my tastes (Wolverine and Iron Man), and Blade was lame to begin with.  Still, the physics in play feel very good and the tables themselves are well-constructed and fun to play.  Highly recommended.

Costume Quest: Grubbins on Ice DLC - It's more Costume Quest, which means more critically overrated and extremely average RPG gameplay, without anything akin to the level of humor you'd expect from a Double-Fine game.  The new costumes aren't all that useful until you reach the final boss, and there really isn't anything approaching gameplay variety in this.  Still, it's decent enough.

X-Men Arcade - Nothing special (outside of the hilariously bad dialogue and voice acting), especially since you have unlimited lives so you can just spam your Mutant Powers continuously and beat the game in less than a half hour with no negative consequences whatsoever.

PAC-MAN Championship Edition DX - Surprisingly awesome, considering I'm not the biggest fan of the original Pac-Man.  It's fast, it's fun, and it makes all the right gameplay tweaks to make Pac-Man relevant for a new gaming era.

Epic Mickey - Needed Voice Acting, a competent camera, optional tasks other than endless fetch quests, more "forgotten" Disney attractions (most of what's here not only isn't overlooked or forgotten, but is still in active service in the various Disney parks), less tedious back-and-forth through the 2D platforming sections, and the ability to backtrack so you can explore.  The sense of choice is good, though, I thought the game looked good for the platform, and the paint and thinner mechanics work well when the game lets you use them.  They should have ditched the combat entirely, though.  It just isn't interesting.

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood - The best Assassin's Creed by far, with the focus on one smaller city and various gameplay tweaks that dramatically speed up progression and make the player feel more like an assassin.  The missions are getting increasingly stale, though, and the plot has long since lost any sense of credibility it might have had due to the endless barrage of conspiracy theorizing and the sense that the writers are just making the story up as they go along.  To be frank, despite Ubisoft's rush to milk this series to death with yet another Creed game next year, this franchise needs to rest for a few years and return with a new design document, as it just feels like it's spinning its wheels with marginal improvements.  I did not have a good experience with the online multiplayer, which shows promise but I had severe technical issues with.

Super Mario All-Stars: 25th Anniversary Edition - A perfect symbol of the complacency and laziness Nintendo has started to show in recent years: the game itself is fine, but it shows exactly zero effort in the porting from SNES to Wii and the packaging extras are lamer than expected.  It's not even the version with Mario World that was released a year later with the tweak to Luigi's sprite.  It's a pure nostalgia cash-in that I can only recommend because Nintendo will never put the game on the Virtual Console so long as rabidly nostalgic gamers will line up to pay $30 for a $8 SNES ROM.

Dragon Age: Origins - Not my thing.  The game world just feels incredibly generic, and the gameplay looks like it was lifted from a 15-year old PC game (which, considering this was made by the creators of Neverwinter Nights, it probably was).  There's probably something wonderful in here for people who can get into it, but it's just not for me.

[ymeegod]

How long did you invest in Dragon's Age?  It startes off slow like most RPG's but by the end the gameplay really does pick up so well as the story.  It's not as hardcore as NWN and it has it's own rule set though it's similar to D&D and theres plenty of tatics. 

Hell, I think I recall there's 6 beginings at each one takes at least 6 hours to complete so you might want to try placing 10+ hours in at least--get a few of your party members and hear their sob stories. 

[broodwars]

How long did you invest in Dragon's Age?  It startes off slow like most RPG's but by the end the gameplay really does pick up so well as the story.  It's not as hardcore as NWN and it has it's own rule set though it's similar to D&D and theres plenty of tatics. 

Hell, I think I recall there's 6 beginings at each one takes at least 6 hours to complete so you might want to try placing 10+ hours in at least--get a few of your party members and hear their sob stories.

I didn't play much of it, and from what I've heard I picked the worst origin story at the outset (I generally play Mage-type characters in RPGs when I have a choice).  I played enough to get a feel for how conversations worked and how the battle system worked, and it just wasn't for me.  Maybe I'll give it another shot later on down the road, maybe not.  I prefer Mass Effect.

[broodwars]

Singularity - Inconsistency, thy name is Singularity.  This was one of two games (the other being Sin & Punishment: Star Successor) I picked up dirt cheap via Amazon earlier in the week, and having now finished it I'm finding myself very conflicted on this one.  I've often heard it said that this game is basically "Russian Bioshock", but that statement really does both games a disservice.  While Singularity "borrows" some UI elements and traits from Bioshock (such as the audio diaries and the E99 Tech Items, which are this game's version of ADAM), the combat (where there's a lot of experimental ideas) and exploration (there's very little) really don't feel anything like Bioshock.  Sadly, I'd only say the first half hour or so of the game feels like Bioshock, and it's easily the best part of the game: you're just wandering around ruined buildings with haunting audio trying to creep you out and the occasional monster.  After that point, though, the game feels much more like your typical 1st person shooter, "borrowing" quite a bit I suspect from the Half-Life games, including a gravity gun; the legendary exploding head crabs (which are incredibly lethal and annoying); and a female partner who's modeled suspiciously like Alex Vance.

The audio diaries never do an altogether good job of telling the game's story, you never get a feel for the game's characters, and the game's atmosphere is all over the place.  Sometimes it's there in spades, and sometimes it just feels like a continual barrage of linear shooting gallery-style corridors with doors locking behind you and invisible walls deterring you from backtracking and exploring.   I still don't have the faintest idea why messing with the flux capacitor causes people; plants; and insects to turn into something out of The Conduit, and as a result the foes you shoot at feel pretty arbitrary and random.  There are some really inventive weapons in play, though, like a Sniper Rifle with a temporary bullet time mode; a grenade launcher where you can steer the grenades along the floor; and (my personal favorite) a rifle with exploding shells that you can guide in mid-air to take out targets on the other side of the playing field.  Your Time Manipulation Device has some interesting tricks, but it doesn't really feel fleshed out.  Overall, the game as a whole feels like a combination of several other games, whose pieces function well individually but never really mesh together.  In many ways, the game reminds me of the GameCube FPS Geist in that way.  I recommend the single player experience, but don't expect the 3rd coming of Bioshock because this is nowhere near as polished or refined.

[lolmonade]

One Chance - Flash game on Newgrounds. 

This is a game that has gotten a lot of news coverage due to a unique game mechanic: You are only allowed to play the game once (unless you use a work-around solution).  The synopsis is that you are a doctor that found a cure for cancer, but the following day, you find that the vaccination is too powerful, and destroys all cells.  You are then given this cryptic message:



The game then continues on a day-by-day basis, allowing you to make choices on how you are going to spend the remaining 6 days on Earth.  This game's strengths and weaknesses are the same as Heavy Rain: gives you the impression of freedom of choice, but they are usually binary choices that will drastically change the end of the game. 

Two things this game has over Heavy Rain:

1)  Each choice you make matters - In Heavy Rain, too many times I found that only about 1/4th of the actions you made make a sincere effect on the outcome of the story.  In this game, every choice you make will impact the outcome of the game.  This is most likely due to the limited amount of choices you are given throughout the game, though.

2)  Length - While I loved Heavy Rain, I couldn't bring myself to play it too many times due to the repetitiveness of each segment after you've beaten it once.  With One Chance, it's only a 10-15 min game, and is condensed to the point where you shouldn't get bored with playing it.

Graphics are 8 bit style with large sprites.  Nothing to write home about.  The music fits the game well, although a bit repetitive.



While not groundbreaking material, it is an enjoyable 15 mins, and I do encourage anyone to try it.

[ShyGuy]

I failed, the world died. Not many options.

[KDR_11k]

Hammerfight: The idea of combat with giant helicopter-mounted weapons like maces, swords and axes is fun, it has many fun parts but it also has depths of frustration few games ever reach. Like the first boss being an escort mission where the boss can instakill the escort target with a stray movement or some enemies exploding which will hurt you badly when you are around and since it's a melee focused game you will be around.

Also the ringing ears effect trope has to die, seriously.

[Ymeegod]

Metal Gear Acid 2 (psp)

If you read my above review of the first game you'll find this is a much more refined version of that game.  The story is still an joke and the graphics are bland to say the least.  Not sure what they smoked but instead of adding details to the graphics they just went ahead and splashed BOLD-Bright colors all over the place.  Not sure if this one one sad attempt to 3D gameplay since it had some option about 3d glasses but bright colors didn't keep me from looking at a poorly detailed game.

The gameplay is the only thing that kept me going while it's not the best tatical-turn based card game it does have some nice moments where your ingenuity plays out.  Best tatics ever--lighting oneself on fire and then spreading it to the enemies or using knockdown weapon blasts to send enemies failing from platforms to their graves.  Good moments when your tatics work and this game does a much better job telling you what a card does and how to actiavte it.  The only gripe about the gameplay is it's still cardbased so you might lose a couple of rounds simply because you were delt a bad hand for the start.

I'll give this one a bit higher score than the orginal:
7/10 passable

[Ymeegod]

Killzone 2 (PS3)

Well this game recieved tons of hype from it's E3 show a couple of years back but it ends up being a very genertic shooter--a well polished one but still a clone with little personality of it's own.

The graphics are sharp but nowhere near what was shown at e3 (the game only runs in 720P) and the sound effects are good but there's nothing to special IMO.  The gameplay is your standard linear shooter where you'll lend from one checkpoint to the next without interacting much other than flip that switch. 

Still, I only played the single player mode and while it's not the most orginal game it's still a good way to blast away one afternoon, I give this an:

8/10 good

[Ymeegod]

Infamous (PS3)

It's strange when two games launch roughly at the same time and yet feel so remarkable the same--I'm talking about Prototype.  Both games are open world action game where you'll placed in a town during some freak accident and have to clean up the town with new found powers. 

The story isn't going win any awards, you'll some "chosen" hero/villain out to find out who set him up as a human bomb.  You'll have to make a few choices along the way, good vrs evil, which helps you unlock new ablities--BTW:  why do all the evil ones kick major ass vrs the goodie-to-shoes? 

The gameplay is a hit or miss, exploring the town and collecting blast shards is kinda boring because there's little to distract you.  Once in a blue moon something happens, mostly news bulletins, but most of the time it's just the normal--group of thugs are attacking you--kill them and move on.  Could have used more variety IMO.  While it had sidemissions and a few pop-up ones you'll never find them to exciting.

Combat is the one saving grace in this game.  You'll get new abilities just at the right time when the old oles were getting a bit to stale.  You'll even get to throw in a few cool combos like air blasting a guy off a roof and then shooting him down like a clay pigion or crushing them by tossing a car atop of them.  I have to say I enjoyed the combat quite a bit minus the fact that you'll want to be the baddie because he gets all the good abilities.
 
I give this one an
7/10

[lolmonade]

Infamous (PS3)

It's strange when two games launch roughly at the same time and yet feel so remarkable the same--I'm talking about Prototype.  Both games are open world action game where you'll placed in a town during some freak accident and have to clean up the town with new found powers. 

The story isn't going win any awards, you'll some "chosen" hero/villain out to find out who set him up as a human bomb.  You'll have to make a few choices along the way, good vrs evil, which helps you unlock new ablities--BTW:  why do all the evil ones kick major ass vrs the goodie-to-shoes? 

The gameplay is a hit or miss, exploring the town and collecting blast shards is kinda boring because there's little to distract you.  Once in a blue moon something happens, mostly news bulletins, but most of the time it's just the normal--group of thugs are attacking you--kill them and move on.  Could have used more variety IMO.  While it had sidemissions and a few pop-up ones you'll never find them to exciting.

Combat is the one saving grace in this game.  You'll get new abilities just at the right time when the old oles were getting a bit to stale.  You'll even get to throw in a few cool combos like air blasting a guy off a roof and then shooting him down like a clay pigion or crushing them by tossing a car atop of them.  I have to say I enjoyed the combat quite a bit minus the fact that you'll want to be the baddie because he gets all the good abilities.
 
I give this one an
7/10

I think that's a fair grade.  I loved this game, and spent several hours just exploring the city, but your complaints are spot on.  I guess I was just able to overlook those flaws moreso than you.

Did you play Prototype?  How was that in comparison?

[lolmonade]

Super Meat Boy - PC

After hearing such glowing praise from RFN, and finally having some disposable income, I decided to purchase Super Meat Boy off of Steam.

If you are a fan of platformers, then there is no reason why you shouldn't own this game. 

It's like they took the difficulty of Super Mario Bros 2: The Lost Levels, replaced Mario with a meat cube, switched goombas with tons of saws/hazards, and added in the wall jumping part of New Super Mario Bros.

The only fault I have with the gameplay is that the jumping seems a bit floaty (feels similar to the jumping physics of the online freeware game "n", for a comparison).  A game like this requires precise controls, and this makes it difficult to time things correctly.  For the most part, I fault my problems with being accustomed to Mario physics, but it's still difficult to adjust to the way the character moves.

There are some other cool features as well.  Once you beat a level, it'll show a replay of your attempts to beat the level at the same time.  When you get further into the levels, this will look like dozens of meatboys all trying to go forward, and several going through grinders as your one successful attempt beats the level.

I highly suggest utilizing a controller over a keyboard.  Again, due to the difficulty of the game, you're going to want to have the least amount of barriers to your success possible, and this is one of the few genres of games that doesn't benefit from a keyboard and mouse.  By default, the PC version accepts the Xbox controller, but I have found a way to use a gamecube controller to work. 

I'll give this game a solid 9 out of 10.

[Ymeegod]

I did play Prototype way back when and for the most part they are the same but I would give the edge to Infamous because Prototype had a few more issues, namely the pacing and some control issues.  If you played one of them you really don't need to play the others or in Prototype case you can just try the first few hours because in that game there's alot more grinding vrs Infamous where you could have just skipped over the sidequests and got on with the main.  Prototype also had issues with air born enemies and tracking killing them.  You had to do this "cannonball" move to get within reach of them but for some reason the camera would do funky dance or something causing you to miss or do another move entirely--that could have been fixed with a patch but I played it before any patch was applied.

But what killed it like alot of openended games was the lack of life in the world--GTA spoils us and we expect it now.
 
 

[Killer_Man_Jaro]

By default, the PC version accepts the Xbox controller, but I have found a way to use a gamecube controller to work.

Really? How'd you manage that?

[lolmonade]

By default, the PC version accepts the Xbox controller, but I have found a way to use a gamecube controller to work.

Really? How'd you manage that?

 I have a USB connector that lets you connect original Xbox, PS2, or gamecube controller to the PC.  Usually works pretty well for emulators, but Super Meat Boy wouldn't recognize it.

After spending some time searching the Google, I found a program called JoyToKey, which basically lets you assign keyboard key inputs to a joystick you have plugged in.  Assign the left & right arrow to the d-pad, and the shift & space key to the A & B button on the GC controller, and it works pretty well.
 

This game really isn't very playable on keyboard.

[Halbred]

I have Prototype. Played it for a long time but it got kind of boring, mainly because you just keep doing the same sh*t over and over again. I liked the abilities, though. I hated the emo atmosphere of the hero and the plotline. I think that's why I stopped playing.

I just got inFamous for Squidmas and I'm amazed at how similar the games are. I do like inFamous' comic book style, though. The hero still seems a little emo to me.

[KDR_11k]

I think at some point he stops being emo and just becomes pure evil.

Prototype is really a game about doing unnecessary nonsense, nothing makes that more clear than the curb stomp move which only works on dead enemies anyway. And hey, when would you ever NEED to use a civilian as a surfboard down a flight of stairs?