Tomb Raider I don't care if it's 9.5 or 10 out of 10, the game is a masterpiece, a gaming madness. I would not change anything, it's just perfectly combined - puzzles, shooting, exploration. And, wow, it just looks gorgeous. I didn't expect a game could surprise me at the end of this generation.
----minor spoilers ahead----- Bioshock Infinite I really enjoyed this game. It had some of the best art assets I've ever seen in a game. They did a brilliant job of capturing turn of the century American exceptionalism. Elizabeth is a great character. They did a really good job with her voice acting and facial animations, she's likable, and she's actually helpful in combat. The story is very surreal and has a surprising twist. It's based on the idea that there are many possible realities based on the choices we make, and that you could be a completely different person in another reality because of different life decisions. All of the stuff with time travel, alternate timelines, anachronistic technology, different versions of people in different realities, and inter-dimensional rifts comes together better than you would think. It also explores deeper themes of jingoism, racism, and religious extremism. The story is something you'll probably still ponder long after you've finished the game. The ending is haunting. The shooting has an old school feel, but there's enough new stuff thrown in, like the skyhook and inter-dimensional tears, to keep things feeling fresh. I liked songbird. I wish he had been available more than just in the final boss fight against the Vox fleet. I'll definitely be playing this again on higher difficulty. 1999 mode is supposed to make it feel more like System Shock 2. I also want to experiment with the vigors. You're only given enough money to fully upgrade a few of them. Overall: 9.5/10. I have to dock it a little bit because of an annoying load stutter issue I experienced and because I had to tweak the mouse sensitivity in the ini file. But make no mistake, I think this game is a timeless classic, and it will probably age really well because of the art. Anyone who likes story driven FPS games should play it. I would compare it to Half-Life 2, but I actually think Bioshock Infinite had a much better story and that Elizabeth was a much better travel companion than Alyx Vance. ----major spoilers---- On another note, the ending clearly laid out for those who are confused: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/experienced-points/10278-Explaining-BioShock-Infinite Also, there's more of the ending after the credits. Basically there are no timelines left where Comstock ever existed. Columbia is never created, and Anna is never kidnapped to become Elizabeth. So we're just left with Booker raising Anna. That's the significance of showing him back at his detective agency with the baby crying in the other room.
Bioshock Infinite Well I probably didn’t like this game as much as most people. It was good but not great. It starts off kind of slow but constantly gets better as it goes on. Elizabeth is really one of the game’s shining points. Her character is helpful and interactive. I didn’t really care for the vigor powers. I didn’t even try most of them and the ones I did use where limited by the amount of salt I could carry. Possession could have been useful but it could only be used twice before the salts were gone. I mostly used shock as it didn’t drain much salt. The vigor traps were really useless against the small enemies but they worked pretty well against the tougher bad guys. I had one technical issue with my mouse. In order to play the game reasonable well I had to slow my mouse down as much as possible. Unfortunately that made my mouse annoyingly slow in the menus. I also though the sound projection in the game was way off but that wasn’t too annoying. 7/10
Karateka (classic) This was recently released on iOS by Jordan Mechner and I downloaded and played through it today. I originally played this one on the C64 and the in-game music sounds a bit different than I remember, so it's probably a port from another platform (most likely the Apple II). Took a while to shake off the rust and remember the basic strategy/timing, but I finished it in 39 minutes according to the stats, which is nothing special. I'll have to try it again and see how much time I can shave off.
Assassin's Creed 3 It is difficult to judge this game. On one hand it is incoherent, badly directed and full of minor technical issues. Also, I actually didn't like the cities. I don't think old Boston or NY are recognizable for someone from Europe like myself. On the other hand, it has definitely the best plot and best characters of the whole series. This kept me playing and although the ending is rather disappointing, the game has its moments to remember. I still consider AC2 to be the best but AC3 is just behind. Definitely worth of playing.
I completed The Last of Us a couple of days ago but haven't had much free time to post about it. Then last third to quarter of the game finishes very strong. The WINTER chapter is fucking brilliant, actually. Avoid all spoilers on this part. I think it's the strongest part of the game in terms of storytelling, but the impact of this segment would be very sensitive to spoilers. This game has a New Game+ mode to go along with the undiscovered collectable search, which further adds to the replay value. The only negative I can think of about the last portion of the game is that it seemed like the difficulty may have actually decreased a bit because I had continued to upgrade my weapons and abilities and the enemies didn't get significantly tougher, although some of that is due to the fact that I managed to find all 5 tool upgrades my first run through. An upgraded hunting rifle was especially handy in certain segments, and it happens to be the type of weapon I tend to like (precise, high power, long range, penetrates armor). I'm looking forward to playing through these segments on higher difficulty levels, which should make them adequately challenging. The intensity is maintained more by what you don't know rather than what you see on the screen. The storytelling seems to really respect the player and handles exposition in a manner that assumes a mature, intelligent viewer rather than dumbing things down to the lowest common denominator. I thought Rockstar San Diego (ending of Red Dead Redemption) and Quantic Dream have recently taken their games in this direction, and Naughty Dog has taken it one step further. Definitely make sure you're able to play through this game at least once, and definitely make sure that you avoid spoilers. 10/10
I've nearly finished this on survivor difficulty. Pick ups are scarce and the enemies hit hard. Unfortunately I had a game breaking bug where part of the level wouldn't load up, attempting to quit game would reboot the console and the save wouldn't load afterwards. so I had to restart the chapter. Deleted the patch and gamedata and managed to get past it. I noticed things weren't going smoothly when audio wouldn't play and sometimes scripted animations went poof and you had floating static models gliding around. If it weren't for these awful bugs and glitches, it'd be 10/10. My disc drive has been acting a bit odd. I think Naughty Dog games are killing it with the constant streaming.
The original Uncharted seemed to have killed my original BD-ROM drive in my fat PS3. It croaked during my lengthy Uncharted playing spree. Much is made about tiny installs and whatnot, but I'd personally much rather be able to save much of the data on the HDD rather than replace another Blu-ray drive. I noticed occasional frame rate slowdowns and a few very minor graphical glitches here and there, but I did not encounter anything significant.
Transformers: Fall of Cybertron I almost gave up on this game after the first 10 minutes. It felt lame and looked bad. Fortunately I stuck with it. By the end I was really liking it. It's a throwback to the old 80s cartoon version of the Transformers. If you were into that kind of thing you may want to check it out.
Spec Ops: The Line I got this for about $4 which was a great value cause I'd say the games worth $15 to $20. I've played a lot of games and I'd have to say this might be the darkest game I've ever come across. If you like Apocalypse Now you may want to give this a go. As one other person put it, "it's a real mind fuck". I almost quit early because the story doesn't make much sense in the beginning. Give it an hour and it will get more interesting. I finished last night and I'm still not sure if I enjoyed it or not but I think it's earned a B+.
Newegg of all places had it on sale a few days back. The sale didn't last long and I didn't get a chance to post it here. I'm sure it will pop up on a Steam sale at some point. I like the Yahtzee review. I like how he compared it to horror games because that's what it felt like.
The Walking Dead: Season 2: Another great Walking Dead Episode season from Telltale games. Not as great as season 1 but it was still pretty good.
Dragon Age: Inquisition I really liked it and was a little sad when I finished it. Looks like I clocked about 98 Hours on it which might make it the longest single player game I ever played. 9/10.
Just out of curiosity, how many hours in were you before you hit Level 20? I'm just under 30 hours at the moment, and at Level 10.
What are you guys using for controls in DA:Inquisition? Is a controller preferred over kb/m? The kb/m setup seems kind of cumbersome, especially with the UIs and clearly the tactical mode was designed for analog sticks in mind. Just feels clumsy as hell to navigate. Awesome game though, I've put around 8 hours in so far.
I'm really not sure. 60 maybe? I probably did about 90% of all the content. One point that maybe considered a flaw is that if you do all the little side missions your going to out level the main story mission pretty fast. I think I was 19/20 for the last 3rd of the game which made it too easy. Looking back I'd say a person should play on hard or nightmare if they plan to finish every mission in the game. I'm doing Keyboard mouse and I have no doubt the controller is better. I have a 360 controller but I kept with the kb/m. Once I mapped the pause and search buttons to my mouse it got a little easier to play. I never used the tactical mode as it was just hosed up until the first big patch. By that time I'd gotten used to playing without it. If you like the first 8 hours you'll like the rest even more. I actually thought the first 8 were kind of boring but I also didn't dive into the main mission right away.
I've started to experience that recently. I put off the decision to choose between the mages and the templars in the main story and now I'm 3 levels above the higher end of the recommended range for starting either of those options.
I finished Rayman Legends. Some of the invasion levels really got me stressed, getting them done within 40 seconds and retrying at every little mistake wasn't that fun but overall the game was fantastic.