Leaderboard

Recent bargains. Got all 3 for less than £30.

Not played Dead By Daylight in a while. Seems a good time to go back into it, now Silent Hill has been added.

Finished early this morning. I absolutely fucking loved it. It’s genuinely the most powerful and emotional experience I’ve had in a game. The gameplay loop is just perfect IMO too, it has some of the most intense stealth, horror and action which is nicely book ended by more quiet exploration, flashback and story sequences which just always made me want to see more and just gave me enough time to breathe. Enough whereby even though I’d feel exhausted by a certain section to the point where I’d feel I need to turn it off (in a good way), the immediate part afterwards would always relax me just enough to go “I’ll just do one more encounter” or “explore this next part” & keep playing far longer than intended. Speaking of that, it’s a very long game for a linear story experience. Personally I enjoyed every minute though, I never felt bored. It probably could have had 5-10 or so hours trimmed out without losing too much but I was enjoying the gameplay and story so much that the length of it never bothered me and I enjoyed getting new parts and locations to experience throughout. Near 30 hours of this felt far shorter and was far more interesting to me than your average 20+ hour open world game. I will say though, I think I may prefer the Joel and Ellie’s story in the first. There was just something so fresh, unique and new with that experience. It was also the first time a game ever to make me so invested in it’s world and its characters that I don’t think any other game will be able to match it. One of those 1st time experiences which is unfair to everything after it. I’m thinking of returning to it to see if it’s my memory playing tricks on me but I’m also scared of ruining that memory so may not... The gameplay is vastly superior in this too which may make it even harder to go back to.. After saying originally I didn’t want TLOU to have a sequel, I’m so fucking glad they did. Which speaks volumes as far as I’m concerned. 10/10 If you’ve not played the original, I strongly recommend playing it before this. I very much doubt it’d have the same resonance with you otherwise. Similar to playing FFVIIR, I think playing the original adds a huge amount to your enjoyment of these games. Just as a little footnote - I hate people. Ive managed to avoid all spoilers and discourse around this game while I’ve been playing it. So I went on a bit of a dive watching videos and reading stuff regarding it this morning. WTF is wrong with people? There’s some good criticism out there, a lot I understand completely, if it doesn’t click with you there is some things I can see why you’d dislike it. But the amount of whining seems to be on another level.

I think this is separate a bit from TLOU but I wish games could compartmentalize their story telling a bit, or even give the option to skip through sections of the game that might be less good or whatever. There's a Dara O'Brian sketch about it how a book won't suddenly close itself if you haven't got a good grasp of all the themes and stuff. With stuff like this and RDRII I think it would be a benefit to have an option to fastforward some of the player controlled bits. ie. you're going through yet another clicker infested apartment. Maybe the player decides 'yeah I've done this before, let me see the next important section and just skip this'. I'm sure there are those who would be enraged by this suggestion but I don't care

Nice. North Star is bloody amazing.

Masterpiece is a strong term. I get why people think this is one, as there’s undeniably some outstanding moments. The combat is satisfying, the collectibles do a great job of fleshing out the events of the world. I do prefer the story of the first game, as it just feels more organised. Is it a 10 out of 10? For me, no. The game did drag on towards the end, and at times came close to wearing out its welcome. To say why is majorly spoiler-tastic, so here goes: Was I disappointed by the time the credits rolled? No. Do I want to see a Part 3? To be honest, no. I think they’ve done all they needed to here.

With what @bellow is talking about I don’t think it’s a lack of courage I think it’s just hyper pretentious and vanity. I think they had a bunch of ideas that were all so good and couldn’t bring them selves to cut any of them, so you get a really stuffed ending. It reminds me of when I was a kid and I would sit around and draw really cool pictures or cartoons and knew that it was really good and then I couldn’t stop adding to it and ended up making it worse. Not that my pictures were as good as The Last of Us Part 2 just the principle of the lesson lol Singularly I admire the art of each part and can see why they want all of them but altogether it’s like Ok wrap it up. Especially because I’m still in the camp that a significant amount of that second half could be cut as I stopped getting anything out of it from a story perspective. I was very much like really, there’s more? It is a perfect example of diminishing returns. EDIT: For the record I really, really like this game but I’m just sitting at an 8 where as most other people are at a 10 it seems so it might seem like I’m negative on it, when I’m just a bit more negative on it.

Such a brilliant game. The last FF game I actually enjoyed. Definitely way better than 10, which I found boring AF.

I finished this last night, and now can't stop thinking about it. Extraordinary on multiple levels. A masterpiece. I've just watched this Girlfriend Reviews video on the game, which is good viewing for those who have played through the story.

I am one of the many who managed to get some 3ds games to the top of the charts Picked up Bravely Second and awfully named Little Battlers Experience

No, no @Hendo, you've got it all wrong, they're not homophobic, they have a problem with the "writing" which is apparently "terrible" and the "story" which is also "terrible". Definitely not homophobic (and certainly not transphobic).

The only way this is possible is by memorising AI routines but it is still very fucking cool

Basically the same game I posted last time here on a different system: