Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
What Games Have You Completed? (2020 Edition)
Comments
-
-
-
Life is Strange season 2. | Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)
The Outer Worlds. | Borderlands 3.
Far Cry: New Dawn. | Borderlands 3, Moxxi's Heist of the Handsome Jackpot (DLC)
Goat Simulator. | Borderlands 3, Bounty of Blood (DLC)
A Plague Tale: Innocence. | Borderlands 3, Love, Guns, and Tentacles (DLC)
Until Dawn. | Borderlands 3, Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck (DLC)
Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag. | Dishonoured (Definitive Edition)
Assassin’s Creed 4: Freedom Cry (DLC). | Untitled Goose Game.
Control. | Mafia (remake)
One Night Stand. | Assassin’s Creed: Rogue (Remastered)
The Division 2. | Farming Simulator.
Batman. | Minecraft
Star Wars, Jedi: Fallen Order. | Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (remastered)
Assassin's Creed II (Ezio Collection). | Watch Dogs Legion.
Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom.
Batman: The Enemy Within.
Battlefield V.
MediEvil PS4 remake.
Life is Strange: Before the Storm.
Fallout 76.
Mafia III.
Star Wars Battlefront II.
Mafia II Remastered.
The Last of Us Part II.
Call of Duty: World War II.
Erica.
Watch Dogs.
Watch Dogs: Bad Blood (DLC)
The Wolf Among Us.
Borderlands, The Pre Sequel.
Borderlands, The Pre Sequel: Claptastic Voyage (DLC).
Borderlands, The Pre Sequel: The Holodome Onslaught (DLC).
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. Completed and platinumed and if I wasn’t such a fan of the series I would not have bothered. My experience was marred by the plethora of bugs so keep that in mind, but even as a game I would say it’s one of the worst Assassin’s Creed instalments.
In an attempt to copy more recent popular titles, Ubisoft Montreal has thrown in everything but the kitchen sink and none of it quite works. They wanted the movement to be like Witcher or Red Dead in a series where free running and parkour are core mechanics and to make matters worse, they’ve brought back activities that rely on a parkour system that was never developed with these activities in mind…
Getting around before investing in horse training is hell. You can’t go five feet without there being some sort of obstruction. There aren’t that many roads and the roads that are there send you around the whole map before your destination so there’s no point using auto ride. There’s a river at every turn that your horse can’t go through until it’s trained. You can listen to your crew tell stories on your long boat (like God of War) which are fun but these stories are constantly interrupted the moment you veer a little bit too close to a monastery (that can be raided).
Every collectible is locked behind “barred from the other side” puzzles (basically, where you need to get inside a building but the door is locked from the inside) which play less like puzzles but more like an endless checklist of obstacles where you have to do the thing to do the thing to do the thing just to get one ingot to upgrade your armour, it’s absurd.
It has some really fun open world activities which include mini side quests, excellent modern day puzzles, cairn challenges, legendary bosses… but then marks everything on the map so there’s no sense of discovery and you know there’s nothing in between those markers that are worth exploring.
The stealth is sloppy and unfinished. Enemy A.I. can be dumb as rocks one minute and then the next they have eyes in the back of their heads. Very few opportunities to take out an enemy without another noticing.
The story is OK but unwieldy in places, often stopping dead to get sidetracked with nonsense that has nothing to do with the main hook (the main hook being the prophecy that says you will betray your brother). It’s also not an Assassin‘s Creed story. In fact, it’s entirely disrespectful to the lore with the main character never officially joining the Assassin Brotherhood. She outright says that the reason why she won’t join is because hiding in plain sight means less moments for fame and glory which, fair play, is consistent for a Viking but wow, what a twat.
Speaking of the main character, Eivor is canonically female but the male voice actor is far superior, demonstrating a range of emotions from playful to tough to sad to delighted. Female Eivor is just a cave woman, and to satisfy dudebros who cannot bear to play as a woman Ubisoft has accidentally
created a trans character i.e. a man in a woman's body. That's not an exaggeration - if you "let the animus decide" your sex and then play a certain quest line you will see exactly what I mean. Ubisoft are such cowards - either commit to making a female character without a male skin or just straight up admit your sexism and don’t bother. :rolleyes:
Male or female, it’s a shame that Eivor shows no interest in the Brotherhood outside her personal goals because when Valhalla is about the Brotherhood and the Order of the Ancients it shines. Each region is broken up into mini story arcs where you need to ally with those in power of the region in order to “pacify” England overall, but a few of the regions are focused purely on taking out the Order. When you’re doing this it feels like you’re uncovering one big conspiracy... that is, until you realise that the game inadvertently spoils the identities of the members in the menu because the silhouette of each target is too bright.
Also, the Order quest line is held hostage to story progression so it never quite feels organic. In Odyssey you could be running around minding your business when suddenly an NPC with a massive health bar starts attacking you and you realise in that moment it’s an Order member. Moments liked that made the Order more believable, like they really were just a shady bunch of people infiltrating everyday society in plain sight.
Valhalla isn’t even a good Viking game. Ubisoft hyped up the raids in their marketing, which are supposed to be the Viking equivalent of boarding a ship as a pirate in Black Flag, but it falls flat. Your allied A.I. is buggy, sometimes failing to leave the long boat and the music mixing is off, failing to get you amped. The raids are also a perfect example of how the game tries to serve two different types of players and ends up satisfying neither.
On the one hand, the devs are aware that many AC fans want to play as an assassin in an Assassin’s Creed game so the monasteries are designed with stealth in mind. However, the devs are also aware it’s a Viking game so you can simply send the crew in and wreak havoc. The problem is if you take the stealth route you will eventually be forced to call upon your crew to help you open a door of a building that still contains guards so you can never 100% stealth it. If you go the Viking route you will have to contend with cramped spaces for open combat and “barred from the other side” puzzles right in the middle of the action which KILLS the momentum. Imagine, you’ve just slaughtered a bunch of NPCs and now you have to stop to find an oil jar to blast open a wall, it looks ridiculous. If you indulge my ‘goopy goblin gamer brain’ (credit to nakeyjakey) then don’t ask me to stop and think in the middle of the action.
It’s so sad that the higher ups think being an assassin is no longer a selling point in a game called 'Assassin’s Creed'. There has to be a gimmick now whether it’s pirates or Egyptians or Vikings. The modern day story line is in tatters - the final thread that ties all the games together to ensure any of it makes coherent sense is now being used for dumb gameplay conveniences (like the aforementioned sex change) and, slight spoilers, it’s also now introducing possible time travel and alternate realities so that the writers can retcon their way out of everything. Alanah Pearce said it best: Assassin’s Creed was so close to being the greatest sci-fi trilogy of all time but Ubisoft’s greed got the better of them.
If you're into Vikings I suppose it's worth a go once the patch cycle is over but would not recommend for long time AC fans.0 -
-
-
Advertisement
-
Fair play The Phantom Pain for such detailed posts.
Thanks, I try to make it detailed but 'm working on making it less long lol Many detailed posts from others on this forum have helped me decide when I should go for a game or not so hope I do the same for others.
Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order
Control
Ori & the Blind Forest
Gears 5
Animal Crossing (paid off my house?)
Ghost of Tsushima
Hypnospace Outlaw
A Short Hike
Donut County
Crusader Kings 3
Spiderman
Finally beat the Spiderman game on PS4. Really enjoyed the storyline. Couldn't be arsed doing all the collectibles and drone missions and safe houses and so on, there's far too many of them. I'll get Miles Morales when it's on sale as I hear it's shorter than this one.
A really disappointing year overall. Most of the games I finished came out in 2019. Only Ghost of Tsushima drove me to finish the storyline this year, so easily my favourite game of 2020. Games are just too long these days! I see the user above platinumed Assasssin's Creed Valhalla. I can only imagine how many hours that took. I'm 25 hours in and only just finished the Lunden story.
Perhaps I'll discover a few games in 2021 that I missed out on this year. I've just started playing Hades. But I don't think these kind of games are for me. It seems like another Dead Cells. And there's a game called Umarangi I've heard good things about.
150 hours and honestly if it was any other game I would have dropped it but I begrudgingly obtained it for my collection. It's a 6/10 at best. The Lunden arc is the best one imo because you actually get to play like an assassin in it.
After all the hype of Hades I took one look at the gameplay and knew instantly it wasn't for me. This is the problem with a lot of hype train campaigns. Journalists rarely objectively look at a game and consider that in order to enjoy it you have to be into that style and genre. It's like with No Man's Sky Next all anyone talked about was how Hello Games added all the things that were promised at launch but not once did they consider whether that makes it a good game in the first place. The Beyond update was way better anyway.0 -
Life is Strange season 2. | Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)
The Outer Worlds. | Borderlands 3.
Far Cry: New Dawn. | Borderlands 3, Moxxi's Heist of the Handsome Jackpot (DLC)
Goat Simulator. | Borderlands 3, Bounty of Blood (DLC)
A Plague Tale: Innocence. | Borderlands 3, Love, Guns, and Tentacles (DLC)
Until Dawn. | Borderlands 3, Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck (DLC)
Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag. | Dishonoured (Definitive Edition)
Assassin’s Creed 4: Freedom Cry (DLC). | Untitled Goose Game.
Control. | Mafia (remake)
One Night Stand. | Assassin’s Creed: Rogue (Remastered)
The Division 2. | Farming Simulator.
Batman. | Minecraft
Star Wars, Jedi: Fallen Order. | Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (remastered)
Assassin's Creed II (Ezio Collection). | Watch Dogs Legion.
Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom. | Assassin's Creed Valhalla.
Batman: The Enemy Within.
Battlefield V.
MediEvil PS4 remake.
Life is Strange: Before the Storm.
Fallout 76.
Mafia III.
Star Wars Battlefront II.
Mafia II Remastered.
The Last of Us Part II.
Call of Duty: World War II.
Erica.
Watch Dogs.
Watch Dogs: Bad Blood (DLC)
The Wolf Among Us.
Borderlands, The Pre Sequel.
Borderlands, The Pre Sequel: Claptastic Voyage (DLC).
Borderlands, The Pre Sequel: The Holodome Onslaught (DLC).
Rogue Company. Completed / platinumed. It’s a free multiplayer game on Playstation. It doesn’t have a campaign to complete so I’m classing the platinum as completion, stop me.
(We need to be more flexible with the rules in the 2021 thread lol).
I was attracted to it when I first saw the promo image on the Playstation store because the characters looked cool and unique. The opening cinematic is deceptively expensive looking, like Bungie/Destiny 2 level quality. The actual game though is decidedly low budget as is the music which honestly sounds like it was written in 5 minutes. It's like Instagram versus real life haha.
It’s fine. Fairly straightforward, you play as several classes in 4 v 4 matches. Classes can be unlocked through reputation points (that you earn through skilful acts) or you can buy with real cash. You earn money between rounds depending on performance to spend on abilities and upgrades that are unique to the class. While some characters initially appear stronger than others, especially for a newcomer, all classes can be pretty lethal if you know how to use them right so it’s really dependent on taste and skill. The game also has a lore but for some reason it's locked in menus, presumably behind real cash or progression. I think you play as a bunch of mercenaries...
It’s a very accessible multiplayer for people who don’t play multiplayer. You can mute voice chat and there is push to talk so you don’t have to endure toxic behaviour. Although one of the few times I did get on the mic the blokes on the opposite team started talking ****e. Not only did my team beat them (with 3 players versus 4), not only was I top of the leaderboard but the killing blow saw me take out all 4 of them in one go while they had me surrounded! it was probably because they were too busy talking tough to pay attention to what was going on. They stayed behind for about 10 minutes after yelling at me for a rematch lol. It was glorious but I’ll never do something like that again. Engaging in toxic behaviour even when you win and/or the opposition deserves it is not good for the soul. Felt like I had to take a shower after.
The matchmaking in general is very good. A team can be absolutely slaughtered the first round and then can come back with a vengeance in the second round. While the maps are varied there are only about 3 modes so it gets repetitive. The devs are constantly updating though so we’ll see how the game develops.
Those who don’t play multiplayer often will find it enjoyable enough however veterans may think it’s missing that wow factor. It’s free and doesn’t take up a lot of storage space so I’d say it’s worth a go for a few hours at least.0 -
The Phantom Pain wrote: »Ubisoft are such cowards - either commit to making a female character without a male skin or just straight up admit your sexism and don’t bother. :rolleyes:
There's a definite wall between what the developer wants and the marketing team thinks of the audience. If that story about the Origins team wanting Aya to be the lead is accurate (and I felt playing it that her story should have been played), that's three games in a row where the woman's story is meant be central but it's the man on the cover.The Phantom Pain wrote: »If you're into Vikings I suppose it's worth a go once the patch cycle is over but would not recommend for long time AC fans.
See, I'd say if you've been with the series from the start, the game's peppered with little bits from the other main titles which are quite rewarding.
But yeah, from my experience, it'll give you stealth options but the narrative and gameplay rarely expects you to be. I'm kinda okay with that as there's always the next game though I can see it putting people off if the franchise to them is to be the Assassin every time.
Valhalla's MGS2 maybe? Eivor's Raiden where most want Snaaake.
0 -
-
Life is Strange season 2. | Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)
The Outer Worlds. | Borderlands 3.
Far Cry: New Dawn. | Borderlands 3, Moxxi's Heist of the Handsome Jackpot (DLC)
Goat Simulator. | Borderlands 3, Bounty of Blood (DLC)
A Plague Tale: Innocence. | Borderlands 3, Love, Guns, and Tentacles (DLC)
Until Dawn. | Borderlands 3, Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck (DLC)
Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag. | Dishonoured (Definitive Edition)
Assassin’s Creed 4: Freedom Cry (DLC). | Untitled Goose Game.
Control. | Mafia (remake)
One Night Stand. | Assassin’s Creed: Rogue (Remastered)
The Division 2. | Farming Simulator.
Batman. | Minecraft
Star Wars, Jedi: Fallen Order. | Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (remastered)
Assassin's Creed II (Ezio Collection). | Watch Dogs Legion.
Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom. | Assassin's Creed Valhalla.
Batman: The Enemy Within. | Rogue Company.
Battlefield V.
MediEvil PS4 remake.
Life is Strange: Before the Storm.
Fallout 76.
Mafia III.
Star Wars Battlefront II.
Mafia II Remastered.
The Last of Us Part II.
Call of Duty: World War II.
Erica.
Watch Dogs.
Watch Dogs: Bad Blood (DLC)
The Wolf Among Us.
Borderlands, The Pre Sequel.
Borderlands, The Pre Sequel: Claptastic Voyage (DLC).
Borderlands, The Pre Sequel: The Holodome Onslaught (DLC).
Immortals Fenyx Rising. Completed and platinumed. It’s not my favourite Ubisoft game released this year but it’s probably the “best” as in the one I think is going to appeal to a variety of gamers. You play as a woman (or man) named Fenyx who is forced to take on heroic duties when Typhon, the Big Bad, enslaves her people and imprisons the gods in various forms. Fenyx’s ultimate quest is to free her brother and defeat Typhon. She enlists the help of the gods but, of course, she needs to help them first before she can set about her quest. So, the mission structure consists of doing a bunch of fetch quests for the gods in an effort to restore them to their former glory. Fairly straightforward premise.
The story is told by Prometheus (the titan who stole fire for mortals) to Zeus. There’s a lot of funny banter between the other gods, but mostly between Zeus and Prometheus who frequently comment on Fenyx’s adventures and provide exposition dumps about Greek mythology. The self-aware humour dictates that a lot of the banter between Zeus and Prometheus will echo your thoughts in the moment, and even the tips on the loading screens have cheeky remarks from Zeus under them, so the game is really trying to remind you of their presence at every turn. I really loved this but some are inevitably going to find it intrusive.
Also, despite the occasional adult jokes, the general tone is very, for lack of a better term, “Disneyfied” and the Pagan gods are morally white washed. The overall message is also very Disneyfied i.e. that sometimes “our weaknesses can be our greatest strength” so expect a lot of prep talks and cheerleading. It’s not as grating as it sounds, it’s actually very charming and a much needed shift in a time where games are just too damn serious.
The difference between whether you love Immortals and whether you merely like it depends on how you approach it. If you’re the type of player who wants to be the max possible level at any given time before taking on a challenge you’re going to become fatigued at least 10 hours before the end. If you decide you’re only going to do some map clearing when you feel underpowered you’ll like it way more. Thankfully, if you’re in the latter camp it’s totally doable to be a little underlevelled as the power gaps are not completely insane and there are a variety of ways to get the edge be it skill upgrades, potion boosts or gear. Even if you’re in the former camp (like me) the grind isn’t torturous because many of the systems overlap so you’ll be killing two birds with one stone no matter what you do. You never really have to go out of your way for resources either because the map is so dense that whatever you need is often in your path to something else you need.
Each part of the Golden Isle map is different. For instance, Aphrodites region is full of lush vegetation and peaceful animals while Hephestos’ region is all machinery and steel. Being considerably smaller than most open world maps (particularly Ubisoft, let’s be honest) it means a lot of areas and landmarks are actually memorable. Each region contains more or less the same activity types i.e. guarded chests, trash mobs, legendary bosses and, best of all, myth challenges which are a range of puzzles related to famous Greek stories that are all unique and fun to do.
Unfortunately, the way you uncover all this is a bit silly. You have to use ‘far sight’ to spot points of interest from a distance. It takes ages if you don’t just spam the R2/RT button and, worst of all, it’s unnecessary. It would have been far more efficient (and less tedious) to either allow the player to uncover the map simply by exploring it OR reveal the entire region upon reaching the highest viewpoint – which you’re required to do anyway because most points of interests won’t show on the map if you don’t unfog it first...
Pretty much most of the activities in the game require stamina which is your lifeblood in this game. Stamina impacts everything you do from your godly powers to climbing to swimming to puzzles so you’re constantly managing it. This brings me to arguably the most touted feature in the game which are the Vaults of Tartaros - elaborate mini dungeons full of puzzles you need to navigate to reach the end goal which is the chest containing Zeus’ lightning bolt. These lightning bolts can be used to upgrade stamina and later reduce stamina consumption. Different vaults have different difficulty levels and if you don’t have the required upgrades to do a vault the game will let you know right away.
What makes the vaults enjoyable is how you can use different abilities to overcome the puzzles. You won’t solve a vault exactly the same way I will. A lot of the time I was doing stuff I’m pretty sure the game didn’t even intend for me to do, almost outright bypassing the puzzles but hey, if it works it works. You’ll be chaining powers a lot which can be awkward as you can't activate the next power until the animation for the previous one ends. Sometimes the vaults are just fighting arenas that escalate in difficulty but they were usually the quickest and easiest to clear. Unfortunately, as varied as the vaults are they are excessive as you need a lot of lightning to upgrade your stamina bar to max. Due to the aforementioned overlapping systems though you will likely max out your stamina doing other activities so you don’t have to clear every single vault on the map.
The game runs mostly well and is bug free but the loading screens, like a lot of Ubisoft games of late, are ridiculous on base PS4. With no ‘continue’ option for you to tell the game you’re ready to play, it means you are made to endure the loading screening for fear that you might spawn into an enemy site.
Speaking of the enemies, the combat is fun especially when you max out your godly powers and start one-shotting everything, but at times the game seems self-conscious whenever it’s not throwing every monster in the myth book at you. Free roam puzzles are often swarmed by enemies you need to clear before you can start them, which is odd considering the amount of enemies you encounter on the way. If that’s not enough, the game has a sort of bounty system where the more good you do on the Golden Isle the more goons Typhon will send. The wraiths are one such lackie - spirits of famous demi gods under the mind control of Typhon. They will spawn and hunt you down periodically until you defeat their physical selves in their secret lairs… but they are annoyingly intrusive as they force you to seek out their lairs just so their wraith versions can stop hounding you. The reward for defeating them all is more than worth it though so it is suggested to do it as quick as you can.
The final, final, final boss fight is a little hokey and there is a late game mechanic in Zeus’ region that will leave you wondering why it continues long after it’s served its narrative purpose… but the story, itself, has a satisfying conclusion and you don’t have to explore Zeus’ region to power up if you’ve cleared most of the other gods’ regions already.
As mentioned, there’s something in Immortals for everyone be it puzzles, platforming, exciting combat and a story that is full of heart and humour. Think of it as a cute little Disney movie – fun for the whole family. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel but it knows what it wants to be and never apologises for just wanting you to have fun. 100% recommend and a great game to close 2020.0 -
Advertisement
-
-
Advertisement