Topic: Games You Recently Beat?

it really is beyond me how people can not see that half life 2 is one of the best games ever created. i mean people are nitpicking about some really small things in half life that are also problems in every other game out there! but for some reason those problems are only considered a problem in half life 2

i first played through the game (and the 2 add-ons) a couple of months ago and i was blown away. everything about this game is just amazing and super well done. the only "negative" thing i can think of is that you don't get that "i'm all alone"-feeling from half life 1. that would be a ridiculous complain of course.

half life 2 is still amazing and just a gaming masterpiece.

@6ch6ris6 - I do think that the hype and expectation hurt the game more than it might have deserved for me personally, but at the same time, I'm not sure I'd say I was nitpicking before. Its quite possible that Half-Life 2 isn't for me, because you're right, there are other games that do a lot of things like Half-Life 2, and I disliked them as much, if not far more - I put down the first Half-Life fairly quickly, because no matter what complaints I could have about HL2's presentation, it at least knew how to put together a good beginning and hold some level of good pacing. HL1 overwhelmed me at the beginning, all while not being particularly fun as a shooter. There's also the Bioshock series, which I hate on every level, and I've long given up trying to figure out why anyone likes them.

So, HL2's still on my list to try again someday, but if I'm being honest, I have a lot more shooters I'd rather play instead.

@CanisWolfred what shooters do you like?

Lessee....DOOM 1 & 2, Quake 3: Arena, Unreal Tournament 2004, Quake 4, Wolfenstein 3D, Wolfenstein (2009), Moon (DS), Hexen, Doom 64, Quake 64, Goldeneye 007 (at least on emulators that tidy up the graphics), Perfect Dark 64 (XBLA version), Halo 1-3, Vanquish, Bulletstorm, Black (2006), Star Wars: Republic Commando, Call of Duty 1-5, Brothers in Arms, Battlefield 2142, Star Wars: Battlefront 1 & 2, Marathon (XBLA), Ziggurat, Tower of Guns, Killzone 2, 3, and Mercenaries, Uncharted 2, Far Cry 4, Overwatch, Red Steel 2, Resistance: Retribution, Serious Sam HD, Timesplitters 2, and Splatoon.

Far Cry 4 & Call of Duty I enjoyed until the problems with both series kind of killed my enthusiasm, but I still had enough found memories that I think I'm willing to keep them on the list. Plus, I kind of liked what I played of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare during the free weekend, so maybe I was just a little burnt out from all the Modern Warfares.

I also remember enjoying Metro 2033 and F.E.A.R., as well as S.T.A.L.K.E.R., though I'd have to replay them to see if I'd still be into those kind of games, I never really got far in any of them so...yeah.

I'm probably forgetting a half-dozen or so games, too. This is assuming that we're talking about First and Third person shooters, because I'd be here all day if I listed all the Shmups and Run & Guns I've enjoyed over the years...

i finished Mafia II today.
very cool game! the city feels so alive. too bad there are almost no things you can do between the missions. this is clearly not an open world game but a story told within an open world. i really liked the story and the characters.
what the hell is up with that ending though?! i was expecting a wrap up to everything and not such a cliffhanger. it was still a great story, but just not totally satisfying in the end. but maybe that was the intention of the developers.

i will defintely try the first mafia game now!

EDIT: is the dlc for mafia 2 worth it?

Sorry for the late reply. Yeah I found Jungle Strike to be somewhat frustrating, the game only supports configurations for the 3 button controllers, which means that your hellfire missiles (the strongest missiles) can't be used while strafing, Urban Strike fixes that issue. But entering a danger zone, which boosts the strength and defence of the enemies, you really need to be able to do both. Some of the later missions are rather poorly designed, requiring meticulous combing of the entire map to find one small vehicle to destroy. The night mission is a nightmare and best left at that.

RvsT wasn't as bad as I remember it. When I was younger I would cheat my way through the game, but I played through straight this time and despite having weaker weapons, I feel as if I finished the bosses quicker this time. It's odd. On a side note about cheats in this game, if any game today had a cheat which made all the male human enemies female, then there would be a total excrement storm from women's "rights" groups. Ahh the nineties.

Haven't played Half Life 2 yet, but I didn't go much on the original. Although hilarity ensued when a jolly western-y track started playing at a boss because I had the Earthworm Jim disc in the drive.

To add to the games I've finished this year:
Megadrive: Combat Cars (dull), Eternal Champions (bloody difficult, even on easy), Alien 3 (also dull), Road Rash 3 (no end credits, you just seem to repeat the 5th tier, fun game though), Hurricanes (average).

Wii: Pikmin 2 (decent game, but I had had enough by the time the credits rolled around, I think I've gone off RTS games)

I just want to mention, I think I've had to write a complete list of my favorite FPS games at least 3 times on this site, so I think I'm just...not gonna talk about Half-Life again until the next time I play it. I'm tired of getting myself into the same arguments over and over again...

@shaneoh Have you ever played any of the other Road Rash games? I've only ever played the first one, I don't know if the new ones are any different. I don't like the weirdly-shaped cartridge design, though...it doesn't fit with the rest of my Genesis collection...

@CanisWolfred
No I haven't played any of the others, though, in the third, it seems that there are more bikes, more weapons (and the ability to steal them from other racers), splitscreen multiplayer and a larger variety of environments. I think all EA games on the MD/Genesis had those large cartridges with the yellow tab. The cartridge for micro machines military was quite different to the standard cartridge:

Yes those are two extra controller slots in the top of it.

Just finished Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, and... wow. Even though I find the 'long lost brother' angle to be fairly cornball, the way the game deconstructs Nathan Drake's high-risk lifestyle is fantastic. Unlike previous games in the series, this entry is thematically dense and does a fantastic job of tying the franchise together by focusing primarily on exploring and developing its characters. This is a huge step up from the junk food plots and one-dimensional characterization in previous Uncharted games.

Visually AND mechanically, this is, far and away, the best game in the series. The platforming in this is mostly well-thought out and implemented. Combat has been spiced up with a robust stealth system and a rope swinging mechanic, allowing for players to tackle enemy encounters in multiple ways. And, good god, this game is a visual marvel, and is probably the most graphically stunning console game ever made.

If I had one problem with the game, it would be that Nadine doesn't feel very well-integrated into the game's narrative. She's not terribly relevant to the game's core plot, has no real character arc to speak of, and disappears near the end of the game without consequence, having fundamentally added nothing to it outside of some unwinnable boss fights.

Easily the best of the Uncharted games. Probably Naughty Dog's best game overall. I really enjoyed it.

I just finished Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon this past weekend. It was definitely a step down from Awakening (SD is my second FE), but by no means was it a bad game. The story was sort of cookie cutter, but easy enough to follow if you paid attention. I would have liked to see more support conversations as there wasn't a lot of character development, but the convos I did see ranged from pretty neat to kinda meh. The chapters were fun yet frustrating at times (especially Endgame), but overall each map was enjoyable and held up to my expectations. And the art....While the battle scenarios were kinda meh (not too fond of the sprites they used), the actual in-game art between chapters was phenomenal; turns out the artist for Ghost In The Shell was responsible for it.

This was my first true taste of permadeath. While I was trying for a deathless run, I gave up on that a little over halfway through. XD Wolf was my first casualty in Ch. 14 or 15. Sedgar fell in chapter 24, and I lost Cord, Palla, and (sob, killed by a lucky crit near the end) Merric in the Endgame. I'll likely try a couple different strategies with the last chapter, but for now the above was my best result.

Edit: I also finished Metroid: Zero Mission this evening. Having played the original, I can honestly say this is one of the best remasters that I've ever played. The enemies, upgraded environments, updates to match the more recent installments (at the time...), that added section with Chozodia and the Space Pirate ship at the end.... Just wow.

It was also neat to see how they touched on Samus's backstory, another thing that really sold this game to me. I'd say I liked this one almost as much as Fusion and Super Metroid! I might play around with the unlockable original Metroid a little more, though it's noticeably a bit stunted (in more ways than one) when compared to its NES counterpart.

Just completed Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest. Played the first 15 missions on Hard/Classic and switched over to Normal/Classic for the second half once I realized I was deliberately avoiding the game because of how punishingly difficult it was.

My feelings are... mixed. The story is garbage: it feels incomplete and only works because the main character acts like the most gullible fool in the world. His/Her reasoning is often laughably irrational, and the fact that the thrust of the story involves escorting King Garon to the Hoshidan throne so that you have an excuse to kill him is, frankly, pretty ridiculous. I did enjoy the ending, though, and while the characters aren't terribly deep, some of them are memorable and fun. The campaign was interesting, with various levels having distinct win conditions other than "rout the enemy" and mechanical gimmicks that changed up gameplay a bit. The music and visual presentation were both fantastic, but that wasn't really a surprise. I feel like this was less satisfying as a singular experience than Birthright was, with a terrible narrative arc and no emotional resonance whatsoever.

I didn't really enjoy the My Castle component in this game. I feel like that extensive hub works better with a game like Birthright that has random battles.

Overall, I mostly enjoyed my time with it, but it's the most disappointing game of the four I've played (FEF: Birthright + Conquest, Awakening, and FE7).

I hope the developer doesn't make one game with three different paths next time, and focuses on just creating one excellent route.

@Tyranexx Zero Mission is the perfect Metroid game, as far as I'm concerned. Everything about it is so fun and polished.

@Ralizah: I agree on the amount of polish. The only reason that Fusion and Super Metroid rank a smidge above it in my opinion are the music (Fusion's title theme is still my favorite tune in the series), SA-X encounters, and boss fights, respectively. I haven't played any of the Prime games yet, so my viewpoints may change a bit.

Your perspective on the story between both Birthright and Conquest is interesting. I've generally read the opposite on the internet; many seem to enjoy Conquest's story more. I actually have Conquest in my backlog (I primarily chose it because of the available unit types) and may someday pick up Birthright as well if I can burn through some of my 3DS library. I don't plan on picking up Revelations since it's DLC-only.

Thankfully, Fire Emblem Echoes seems to only be set on one path/version this time, so hopefully your wish for one solid, cohesive experience will be granted.

@Tyranexx Super Metroid is great, but the controls are a bit floatier than I like. As to Fusion, while it has its awesome moments (the SA-X encounters you pointed out are the closest the series has come to feeling like a horror game), the general linearity and overt focus on obvious narrative elements makes it rank a bit lower on my list. Still a great game, though.

The thing I like about ZM, besides the polish, the innovative zero suit section, and the tight controls, is the length. It's long enough to provide a really meaty gameplay experience, but also short enough that I can comfortably finish it in an evening of focused gaming. This incentivized me to replay it again and again (something I generally don't do), cutting my game time and finding more of the secrets.

The Prime games are fabulous (well, Prime 1 and 3, with 2 being a bit more flawed). ESPECIALLY the first one. You wouldn't think that what amounts to a first-person shooter could feel so much like the classic Metroid games, but it really does.

Interesting. My understanding is that people preferred the story in Birthright and the gameplay in Conquest, although that might just be the preference on GameFAQs and not on other parts of the internet. Birthright's story is nothing amazing, but it feels much more cohesive than the one in Conquest. I have the special edition, so I'll probably end up playing Revelations in a few months.

Echoes does look nice, based on what we've seen so far. Unfortunately, I won't be getting to it anytime soon, as I'm already a little worn out by Birthright and Conquest, and by the time I finish Revelations, I'll be ready for a break from the series.

Yeah, I have never heard anyone praise the story for FE Conquest until today. Just throwing that out there. I saw a lot of people who said they preferred the gameplay, though.

If it's any consolation, I don't go to GameFAQs. Not for actual opinions, at any rate.

@CanisWolfred Don't blame you. The place is practically 4chan at this point. Multiple boards are either crippled by excessive trolling (Switch board is this way atm) or are just plain weird (topics on the Vita boards often have titles like "There's nothing wrong with sexualizing underage characters" or "Which Neptunia character has the sexiest feet?")

@Ralizah I think I found actual, factual evidence that 4Chan is a portal to Hell yesterday. So...no, GameFAQs still isn't as bad as 4Chan. It's just a $#!+-hole.

@CanisWolfred 4chan has hosted actual child "exploitation" pictures before, so I doubt you found anything worse than what is already common knowledge about the site.

To be fair, they also actively got involved in the catching of folks who uploaded them. No, I think I found the digital pentagram their taint stems from, though I won't press the subject. The devil's bad enough when he works from the shadows...that's not a beast I wanna corner...

I just finished Gravity Rush. Aaaaaand... I'm somewhat mixed. The game just seemed to end after a somewhat ho-hum final boss battle without any real closure. Not to mention Kat's story I felt didn't develop that much (there seem to be a lot of gaps that have not been filled). But otherwise I thought it was an excellent game; the gravity manipulating mechanics are really fantastic once you get around to it. I also enjoyed what I could understand of the game's bonkers storyline.
A week earlier I also finished The Last Of Us. What an excellent game; I can't believe I was once hard on the game. The only bad thing about the game is its really awful AI (at least I got some laughs from it. I also killed a Bloater with just one shot. Hehe), but otherwise it has to be my best game on the PS4 so far!

GameFAQs has sunk almost as low as 4chan? .______. That...actually takes some effort. I rarely visit the site, but do stumble across one of their threads now and again via Google.

@Ralizah: I can see how some wouldn't be too fond of Fusion's linearity, but it didn't really bother me for some reason. Same case with the narrative elements, really; for the most part I didn't mind them.

Some reviews that I've found of Zero Mission seem to suggest that some disliked its relatively short length, but I'm not bothered with this at all. I'm so busy these days that shorter games are quite welcome. XD Besides, some of those power-ups are quite tricky to get if you're trying to collect everything.

To be fair, I read a few general non-spoilery descriptions of both the main story paths of Fates, and the general consensus in the thread I was reading seemed to point that the users preferred Conquest. Unfortunately that was some time ago (around the games' release), so I don't recall where I read that. For all I know it could have just been a very vocal minority.