The last game you completed

[March's Ghost]

The Inn-Sanity on Steam

Early 90s. You stayed in a quiet hotel for just one night and the next morning you’ve found out that the old world was destroyed. Alien dreams, secrets of your past and other guests that are turning into monsters. This hotel will not let you to check out.

store.steampowered.com

Bought and playe dthis game yesterday as a break from Avatar: Frontier of Pandora. It a decently little game. Good visuals, I encountered no bugs that I am aware of. The premise is kinda basic, but it has some real refreshing gameplay elements that impressed me. For a horror game the scares weren't really there for me, but the setting has all the right parts for a creepy and gory atmosphere.

There isn't a lot of depth to the game, as it only took about 3 hours, but what is there is really good for such a short, inexpensive title. Certain parts really could have a great expansion to its system (mainly an influence dialog that determins how a certain character reacts to you, good or bad). If I had one major complaint it was the puzzles, they kinda dip into the over used (restore power, get the medkit) but fortunately they are not overdone or over used.

 

[McStabStab]

Just got 100% achievements on Ballionaire. Never thought I’d get the “score a billion points” achievement but I used the rainbow > broom > teleporter > cave > pinball bumper strategy to score mega points (I had already gotten all the other achievements before looking up a way to score a billion points).

 

[March's Ghost]

Puppet House on Steam

Puppet House is a puzzle-adventure horror with escape room elements. A freak ritual creates a killer puppet, murdering anyone who enters the ventriloquist’s mansion. Detective Rick, seeking missing locals, will soon face his greatest horror.

store.steampowered.com

Bought this last month on sale, played and finished it today.

Coming in at just under 3 hours, this short horror game probably isn't worth full price, but it does have some value. Parts of it are fantastic and other parts are decent, but nothing special, and some are not so great.

First and foremost this game is close to being a masterclass in non-janky indie game development. It's visuals are crisp, it's performance is extremely smooth (I encountered only a couple bits of stuttering) and its overall visual design is well above average.

Second, its story is pretty decent. Though you'll pretty much figure the hook out almost immediately, it's a good premise that is told somewhat poorly. Notes are basic fare being more straightforward in simple descriptions than with the kind of prose a good horror game should have. There's little mystery to ponder.

Third, though once areas are unlocked you can pretty much roam around at will, but the game is decidedly linear. Puzzles are about as simplistic as you can get and the answers given to you either just before, or shortly after, encountering the puzzle.

Fourth, while not exactly terrible, the voice work is pretty weak. The grizzled voiced protagonist sounds like someone trying too hard to pull off the grizzled voiced detective shtick and the spoken lines are...okay. Sometimes you're like "Why did he say that?" Every other time you're just "Meh."

As for the scares? They are lacking. The settings is creepy, there is some tension to start but it fades mid game and builds back a little bit near endgame. Fortunately the dev doesn't try to make it up with overused jump scares. There's a few, and a couple good ones, but not overdone. The truly tense moments end up being watered down with very generous quicktime triggers that take away any sense of real peril. The setting and the antagonist are still creepy as hell.

Last, the game is pretty much spoon-fed to you, so if you like 100% achievements in a game you'd have to be a really bad player to not get it here.

Ultimately I enjoyed it, but it lacks the writing and gameplay that make games great.

 

[DXCHASE]

Almost fell out of the top page!

Just wrapped up Avowed. Overall a solid 8/10 for me. Story was good, combat was fun, progression was quick and the VA wasnt too bad.

It was a unique experience playing this though because i mostly played this on a tv with a controller, something i rarely do anymore, even had an audience from time to time (not forced i swear).

 

[Rolfil]

I just finished AC: Mirage. I liked that it wasn't as open world and was a much shorter game that others in the series. Once I turned bloom effects off it looked really nice as well.

 

[March's Ghost]

Just finished the main story of Alan Wake 2 and will start playing the DLC later today. I think the game is brilliant. Its continued use of its metafiction hook elevates the concept well beyond its use in the first game.

The best part abut the game is that its weirdness fits so well you just stop wondering and start believing. It isn't weirdness for weirdness sake. A true example of there being a method to the madness.

Although quite improved from the first game the combat is, again, the weakest part of the game with most encounters being the same. It's just different enough to not be a straight rehash of the first game's combat, with a small dash of upgrade available to tweak how you fight.

The combination of live action sequences woven into the game, many from director/writer Sam Lake himself is a real treat as well, further enforcing the blend of reality and fiction.

And, of course, music from Poets of the Fall/Old Gods of Asgard (with one insane musical number) is almost worth the price of entry itself.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Just finished the main story of Alan Wake 2 and will start playing the DLC later today. I think the game is brilliant. Its continued use of its metafiction hook elevates the concept well beyond its use in the first game.

The best part abut the game is that its weirdness fits so well you just stop wondering and start believing. It isn't weirdness for weirdness sake. A true example of there being a method to the madness.

Although quite improved from the first game the combat is, again, the weakest part of the game with most encounters being the same. It's just different enough to not be a straight rehash of the first game's combat, with a small dash of upgrade available to tweak how you fight.

The combination of live action sequences woven into the game, many from director/writer Sam Lake himself is a real treat as well, further enforcing the blend of reality and fiction.

And, of course, music from Poets of the Fall/Old Gods of Asgard (with one insane musical number) is almost worth the price of entry itself.

That Champion of the Light sequence alone is one of the highlights of the last few years in AAA games. Agree on the combat, I think a couple of the boss fights are frustrating and could have been much better. Also liked Sagas origin story and the meta stuff excusing the quality of some of 'Alans' writing.

I mean to replay it because I think the second playthrough might give you a different ending, without wanting to spoil it for anyone.

Its a shame that quite a few people missed out on it due to Epic publishing it.

 

[March's Ghost]

I mean to replay it because I think the second playthrough might give you a different ending, without wanting to spoil it for anyone.

Yeah, The Final Draft is a New Game + mode with more lore drops and an extended ending. I am going to get to it later this year. Tonight it's The Lake House expansion followed by the Night Springs episodes.

Its a shame that quite a few people missed out on it due to Epic publishing it.

I am on the hate Epic and Tim Sweeney bandwagon, but I love games more than I hate them and I will buy what I want to play from wherever I have to and I doubt I'll ever not buy a Same Lake game.

Also this:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2AwUAr-jPo

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Yeah, The Final Draft is a New Game + mode with more lore drops and an extended ending. I am going to get to it later this year. Tonight it's The Lake House expansion followed by the Night Springs episodes.

Nice, I'll probably get there one day. Its one of my favourites from the last few years.

I am on the hate Epic and Tim Sweeney bandwagon, but I love games more than I hate them and I will buy what I want to play from wherever I have to and I doubt I'll ever not buy a Same Lake game.

Pretty much the same.

Also this:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2AwUAr-jPo

I have AW Remastered as well, havent played the original in almost 10 years so would be fun to play them back to back. I think AW is a bit of a shorter game than 2 so would be easier to tack on and compare to the second, and see what I forgot story-wise related to the second game. I do remember that set piece pretty well, and Barry covering himself in Christmas lights.

I came straight out of Black Mesa and now Im most of the way through HL2. Was intending on running through the episodes but a change might be nice.

 

[March's Ghost]

Finished the Lake House DLC and it's alright. A decent bridge to further connect the shared universe. More taken, more Dr. Darling, a new weapon and enemy type.

MINOR SPOILERS FOLLOW

The part that I appreciated most was maybe Remedy taking a bit of a jab at AI content generation due to a part where researchers at the FBC tried to have some form of AI try to write fiction on typewriter. They wanted to create reality shifting stories like Alan Wake could , but it consistently failed.

There were examples of these writings and they mimicked what early AI fiction had to offer with one in particular which gave me a good laugh.

 

[Frindis]

Just finished Uncharted 2 with my nephew.

Overall, it's a decent game with stunning vistas, a good (though not perfect) story, and improved—though still somewhat mediocre—combat compared to the first one. The ambient effects are absolutely top-notch, with the ice cave being a standout. The game also features some thrilling action sequences, such as running away from a tank or surviving helicopter attacks while jumping between train wagons.

Nathan Drake, the protagonist, is a mix between Indiana Jones and Lara Croft. He got some cheese dialogues and seriousness in him and he is not perfect, which is evidently by the way he bumps into stuff he shouldn't have bumped into or tries to drive (badly). He is also extremely lucky and unlucky at the same time which makes for some pretty cool cinematic sequences.

I'm leaning toward the first one as slightly better in terms of my own experience, but overall, the majority of what you do in Uncharted is greatly improved in the sequel. Most notably, the regions are much larger, enhancing the feeling of being on a grand adventure.

One of my greatest experiences with both games has been the incredible panning. By this, I mean the large, open areas that gradually unfold as you enter each new section. I think they did this brilliantly and reminds me of the first time you exit the sewers in Oblivion or experience Whiterun for the first time in Skyrim.

 

[Pifanjr]

I finished the Blightfall modpack for Minecraft. It's a modpack for 1.7.10, so it's missing a lot of stuff compared to the latest version of vanilla Minecraft, but it has backported a bunch of QoL enhancements like better boat controls.

The modpack is based mostly around Thaumcraft 4, probably one of the most popular Minecraft mods, with Botania, Tinker's Construct and Blood Magic playing a major role as well, though you can (mostly) ignore them if you prefer.

Unlike other Minecraft modpacks, this one has one clear goal: clear the world of taint. It features a pre-made map full of interesting things to find, but the entirety is covered in taint which slowly spreads, damages you if you stand on it too long and on which only specific tainted mobs can spawn.

Since my main problem with Minecraft is its sandbox nature, having a clear goal to pursue helped a lot in keeping me motivated to keep playing.

The other thing that helped a lot was joining the Blightfall Discord. The people there are very knowledgeable about the game, very helpful and very enthusiastic, which helped keep me enthusiastic as well.

---

I also completed Slay the Princess. I didn't really know anything about the game before going in, but I really enjoyed it.

The closest thing I can compare it to is The Stanley Parable, insofar that you play through the same events multiple times with a narrator you can obey or disobey, but it has a lot more variety than The Stanley Parable and is a lot more interactive, more like a choose your own adventure horror book, and with an overarching plot.

I didn't complete the game for 100%, I only saw about half of the possible paths, but I didn't feel like starting over as I felt like it would diminish the impact of my first playthrough.

 

[Pifanjr]

I completed Inscryption. It took a lot longer than I thought because I had no idea that the game had three acts in it, but each act shook up the gameplay enough to keep it fresh.

The game isn't particularly hard, but is generally challenging enough that it doesn't feel like a cake walk. Only by the third act were there a bit too many standard encounters in my opinion, which were pretty easy and got a bit repetitive.

The story is intriguing and has a lot of mystery, but the ending doesn't really resolve any of these mysteries so the entire thing kind of falls flat. Apparently the developer has a whole ARG that spans three of the games he's made, which sounds cool but means that if you just play Inscryption you get a bunch of vague hints that don't really mean anything and never get a satisfying resolution.

While looking up the story online I learned there's a new game mode that unlocks when you finish the game, which I would have never known about because the game closes itself after the credits finish rolling. I assumed I beat the game and was ready to uninstall it already. Honestly, I think I still might, as I don't really care about playing more just for a few scraps of lore. I'm ready for a new game.

I'd recommend the game for anyone that enjoys deckbuilding games.

 

[Zloth]

Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth is done. Overall, a good game, though I didn't like it quite as much as Remake.

Like Remake, Rebirth expands on the story of the original Final Fantasy 7 by fleshing out a lot of the interactions and throwing in a multi-verse aspect to the story. Remake covers the middle of the game, where you're released from the starting city and begin exploring the world you're in. You do this by going from town to town in a certain order. Every town has a good sized open world around it to explore.

While pretty, most of those open worlds are very predictable. There will be some materia spots to find that will give you a bit of lore. There will be shrines to find that will help you get the region's summon materia. There will be a special mini-game of the area that will let you get artifacts (only useful if you get all of them). There will be towers to help you find the places to do all these things. And so on. Other than the artifact search, they're all the same thing. The areas themselves are a bit different because each has a certain color of chocobo that has a special travel mode, like flying or walking over water.

Speaking of mini-games... there are a LOT of mini-games here! It's on the level of a Yakuza game, maybe even more. Some are fun, some are not. Some are easier with keyboard/mouse, some are easier with controller. Piano playing is just plain hard whatever you do, unless it's using a cheat program to make the game play at 25% speed. All the required ones are pretty easy or don't require a very high score with the exception of one frustrating mini-game where you've got to throw boxes into a spinning basket.

Like the first game, the two main draws for this game are the combat and the story.

The combat is pretty well done, and fairly similar to the first game. It looks like action, but it sometimes feels more like pause-on-spacebar combat because you can bring up menus to pick from combat options. There are a bunch of those options by the end of the game, too! You'll have plenty to think about while clicking away.

One sad thing about the combat this time is that the other two people in your party of three tend to be rather lazy until an enemy gets into a "staggard" state (which allows you to do a lot of extra damage without reprisal), and then they wail on the staggard enemy. I used a mod from Nexus that caused them to be much more active, plus another mod to give the enemies more hit points to try and balance the game out again. They worked quite well, except for an extended period where one character fights through several rooms alone, meaning I was getting the penalty of the HP mod but not the bonus of the active companions mod. (I could have uninstalled the mods easily, but forgot they were there by that point!) The combat is still fun without the mods, but I do recommend getting them.

The other big draw is the story. Obviously, this one is going to be a matter of opinion, but I'm really liking it. The fleshing out of the story has been done well.

The open world does undermine the pacing if you get to fixated on doing everything in a region before moving on. Don't! Chadley will show you what materia you get for doing which activities. Do the ones that you enjoy and the ones that award materia that interests you. Don't think you need every materia offered - this isn't that sort of game. If you start to get tired of a region early, it's easy and cheap to come back later.

The music is, again, some of the best music in any game. The soundtrack being sold on Steam is expensive, but it has 175 songs on it, too.

You cannot save mid-battle, which can be a bit of a problem in big boss fights. It's easy to save over most of the game. (The save point system of the original playstation game is long gone, thank goodness.)

People seem to think this game is some sort of graphics powerhouse. It ain't! It's using Unreal Engine 4. It's certainly not bad, just don't expect it to be stunning. Oh, and it actually HAS graphics options, unlike Remake.

TLDR: It can get tripped up a bit by its open world systems, but the combat and story are good enough to overcome the issues.

 

[Zloth]

The Forgotten City

It's a good game. It's a little like Outer Wilds but with less puzzle solving/exploring and more chit chat. It's also quite a bit shorter, only taking me about 13 hours to get done everything I wanted. I could probably have 100%'ed the game with another 6-10 hours.

The inventory system is a little strange when it comes to the time loop. You're allowed to keep your stuff from loop to loop, so you can loot the same chest over and over again, and that makes perfect sense to me. I had half a dozen instances of the "last bottle of wine in the city." What made less sense were things that seemed like limited use items. I was afraid to hand those out, thinking I would have to find them all over again, but the game had me covered.

Oh, and the save system is great. It auto-saves a bunch and lets you save any time. I don't think there's a limit on the number of save files, though I wish I could have named the saves.

It doesn't strike me as being worth $25USD, but it's often on sale and/or bundled with other indie games. The game is great for 'cleaning out the pallet' between games.

P.S. Hey, I got two posts in a row!