Topic: Last Game You Beat

100% the Halo Infinite campaign over the weekend and very much enjoyed it.

Congrats @crippyd

Cheers @BAMozzy !

Gun Gun Pixies (Steam. Also available on Switch)

• Playing as one of two (very similar) pixie (technically alien) protagonists, you must explore the rooms of a girls' dorm in order to learn more about Earth culture. Along the way you'll (clumsily) platform your way around collecting "Picoins" (which can be spent at the shop in the main menu on upgrades & new clothes, mainly lingerie), blasting squid-like baddies, and collect information (by examining sparkly areas in the room & by using "happy bullets" to shoot the girls in certain areas...), all while you make sure you stay out of the girls' line of vision (this can be trivialized with a tap of the d-pad, which causes you to strike a "pixie pose", becoming invisible to them even if they're looking right at you, the presumption being they see you as an anime figure).
• Each of the game's 8 chapters is broken up into three "Orders", the first two of which consist of the exploratory gameplay mentioned above. While sometimes the collecting of info is the mission clear requirement, most times you'll have to do something specific, like find a specific item, shoot a specific spot (like a window to open it), or kill all the squids. As you're graded on how many Picoins & info you gather, try to get everything before clearing the mission objective (while you're graded on time to clear as well, there's no defined time limit). Partway through you'll obtain a "Hookshot" that makes scaling the rooms easier, but from my experience there's no place you can't reach beforehand, with a well timed jump from the right spot.
• The third "Order" of each chapter is always a boss fight referred to as "Maiden Suppression". One of the girls will be overwhelmed by emotion & get lost in some sort of exercise (such as Yoga, Treadmill, or even Pole Dancing...), and you'll have to avoid the various "Auras" (different bullet types) she produces during the activity & eventually calm her down by shooting her in various "areas" causing her to go into ecstasy. There is no stealth requirement during these sections, and sometimes things are made extra hectic by the presence of the squid enemies.
• Each chapter is capped off by a bonus "Bath Time" segment, in which the "boss" of the chapter will be taking a bath and you have the chance to make some major Picoins by again shooting her in certain areas & even getting the chance to jump on & physically scrub her (which nets ridiculous Picoins). There is no stealth requirement here, and you can replay them in free play allowing you to cheese enough money to buy whatever you want in the shop (especially considering the further you get, the longer you can make the segment last).
• Essentially half the game is a visual novel (with it's fair share of translation errors), which you'll be exposed to for lengthy periods in between chapters & orders. While there is an endgame narrative revolving around a "Phantom Thief" stealing buildings, it's mostly fluff surrounding the girls & at no point is it something you'll take particularly seriously. Apparently there are different possible endings, but whether or not it's influenced by the choices you make (you'll get like one multiple choice question each chapter), by how much info you gather during the exploration segments, or by a mix of both I don't know.
• Once you complete the game you unlock a suite of options, such as a 3D character viewer, gallery of all the 2D art & videos, costumes to purchase for the dorm girls, and even the ability to disengage stealth & damage altogether.
• Also as a side note, there's one early chapter that's just a Hyperdimension Neptunia crossover.

Conclusion: It's very much a clunky "B grade" Japanese game with extremely narrow niche appeal, but that said I don't think it's as bad as the "3" NL gave it, as it's not really broken in any sense. If you like quirky Japanese games & don't mind the (very) saucy material, it might be worth a look.

Just finished Far Cry 4 on PS4. Great game! I really enjoyed traversing an open world set in the Himalayas and the gameplay was just as fun as Far Cry 3. My biggest issue with the game is that the story is severely lacking compared to FC3. There wasn't enough plot, most of the story missions were about going to a place and taking it over for the rebels. There were some memorable characters that you start caring about towards the end of the game, but things like the main villain not showing up enough brought down the experience. You meet him in the beginning of the game, but the next time you see him isn't until when you're halfway through the story. However, I do have to say that the campaign missions where you have to make choices were really good. I had to think about them for a good while because there were both good and bad sides to both choices. Not to mention that there would be consequences depending on who you choose to side with. So the fact that these choices were actually thought-provoking made the experience more unique compared to Far Cry 3.

It took me about 23 hours to finish the story and most side objectives such as capturing outposts, liberating bell towers and so on. For an open world game, I think that's a good length and it definitely doesn't overstay its welcome. I also enjoyed some DLC missions that I got from the season pass and I'll also be playing the Valley of the Yetis DLC next.

So overall, great game and while it wasn't as good as Far Cry 3, it's definitely the second best game in the series that I've played.

Just finished 999 on PS4 and got the true ending along with every other one. Absolutely brilliant game! I genuinely loved the whole escape-room concept as you have to gather clues and solve fun puzzles in order to escape. The puzzles were almost never difficult to solve, except for a few towards the end. But overall, they all made sense and the most important thing for me is that I never got stuck and therefore frustrated because I couldn't solve a puzzle. Even the difficult ones toward the end would eventually give me hints so that I could solve them. Usually, I tend to get frustrated with visual novels that have puzzle elements, such as Ace Attorney and Danganronpa. But 999 was different though. I don't know if it's because it had easier puzzles or if I've simply gotten better at these games, but the point is that I highly enjoyed the gameplay.

The story started off fairly slow and the majority of the time was spent on explaining scientific theories and terms to the player as they would become fundamental to understanding the plot. There was also a lot of information about historical events and all of this was really interesting to me. I absolutely love it when visual novels mix elements from real life with a fictional story. It's the same reason why I loved Steins;Gate because it talked about time travel and actual scientific theories in order to explain the plot. It just makes these stories that much more grounded, captivating and ultimately memorable to me. Not to mention that when the story started to unravel and the mysteries were getting solved, I just couldn't stop playing. In my opinion, this is the sign of an exceptional visual novel and video game in general.

In short, 999 was absolutely brilliant and it has become one of my favourite games of all time now. On top of this, I've fallen in love with the Zero Escape series and I can't wait to play the next game, Virtue's Last Reward, as I've heard it's even better. Seeing as how both 999 and VLR are coming to Game Pass soon, I highly recommend checking out this franchise, it's just so good!

Just rolled credits on Artful Escape. It's a great game if you're in the right mindset. This game is 100% developed to be played on mushrooms or acid. Just THC for me but it's a very relaxing experience with the great music and vivid visuals.

Finished Shadow of the Tomb Raider yesterday. An enjoyable game for sure. I'm not sure if I'm going to replay it to get the other achievments for the harder difficulties to 100% it or to move on to something else.

I have finished tunic. The game is really good but I found the last boss to be a huge difficulty peak and where the lack of range of your sword is extremily agravating. Also the extra content of the game is so obtuse I gave up on it. In the end the game is awesome for 90% of the time but it ends on a bad note for me

Every game in the Master Chief collection! Loved it all.

Hey @Bamozzy you fancy running some special ops in Halo 4 to help an old pal out?

@themcnoisy I haven't touched Halo 4 for a very long time but if you want a hand, I can 'try' LOL

@BAMozzy yes Bam! Thank you. I don't know your Xbox name though ROFL 😂 your ps was timedown I think.

@themcnoisy Even though its my 'name' on PureXbox and at the very bottom of every forum post in my 'signature' LOL. On PS, it is Taime Downe because Mozzy and bamozzy was not an option...

@BAMozzy sweet will send you a friend request later.

@themcnoisy No probs - won't be on again tonight though as there is a 'big' game tonight in your neck of the woods that's important to me, not so much you LOL

Just finished dark souls and I can easily say I am a souls fan! I had played code vein before and already clicked with me but was allways thinking maybe DS would be too cluncky. It was not easy and after 15h I was still in the early areas but at some point it just clicked. Can't say I enjoy the bosses that much but conquering the areas itself is just fantastic. Unfortunatelly I did not realize beating the game would start new game plus straight way so I skiped all DLC content (not going for either ng+ or start from scratch just for the dlc though... Maybe some other day). Next ds2... But after a little while

@BAMozzy did you see the man city game? That last 5 minutes ROFL 😂. Grealish getting his hair pulled, Sterling getting butted.

We can have a game on Friday night if you want? Or Saturday if that's easier. Just whenever really. It's called Spartan Ops.

@themcnoisy I only saw a bit of the MC game as I was more interested in the other match. Its typical of Atletico Madrid - especially if the scoreline is very close. As a Liverpool fan, we have played them quite a few times in recent years - targetting players on yellows to try and get them sent off with their acting skills, off-the-ball incidents - everything underhanded to get a result - often at the expense of actually 'playing' football to get the result...

Shoot me a message in advance as to when you are planning to be on. If you send on Xbox, I get the message quickly on my phone/PC.

Just finished Assassin's Creed: Origins on PS4 after 53 hours of playtime and it was an absolutely phenomenal game. I did pretty much everything in the game, such as doing all the question marks on the map, uncovering all areas, doing most of the side quests and so on. It's actually a much shorter game than I thought considering I did almost everything and yet it only took a little over 50 hours, while it took me over 80 hours to do most things in Odyssey and even then there were so many things I could've also done. In fact, if you just go through the story then it's a fairly short experience. You still have to do things like completing side quests, outposts and so on in order to level up accordingly with the story missions but I guess you could finish the game in 20-30 hours, which is very short for the open world type of AC game.

The story is honestly not that long and I was surprised to see that I had only uncovered half of the map when I was done with it. It's kinda misleading actually, most of the areas in the game are just desert areas with nothing to do in them. Anyway, I thought the game was more like a typical Assassin's Creed experience than Odyssey. I mean, it is called "Origins" so naturally they would explain how the Creed came to be. Odyssey takes place before Origins which is why it doesn't feel as much as an AC experience. But at least Origins had all the things that characterises an AC game, such as hidden blade, a group of assassins, the assassin hood, templars and of course a strong emphasis on stealth and assassinating targets. Not to mention the supernatural element which is present in all AC titles. So in one way, Origins is very much an unmitigated AC experience.

That said, the gameplay can feel a bit repetitive with too much familiar content and not enough variety. Sadly, the story missions don't feel any different than the side quests and while these things didn't bother me personally since I love Ubisoft games, a lot of people would probably get sick of them very fast. One difference I noticed between Origins and Odyssey is that enemies don't actually scale with you as you level up in Origins. So for instance, you could go to an area where enemies are around your level, and in another they are much stronger than you. This was never the case in Odyssey and I understand now why people didn't like Origins as much because you are basically "forced" to do side content in order to level up and keep up with the story. However, I do feel like this is something that's common with all RPGs so I don't really see it as an issue other than it restricts the open world aspect. It's not like you can play through the game again and have a different experience by taking other paths, because you have to follow a certain path so that you can level up properly. Odyssey on the other hand lets you go wherever you want right from the start because enemy levels scale with you so it promoted more freedom. Anyway, point is that I was not bothered by the structure of Origins as I still enjoyed the game a lot.

It's definitely nice to have finished this game now as it was one of those that I played for around 20 hours and lost my save file for years ago. Absolutely phenomenal experience and I highly recommend it to people who know what they're getting into based on my aforementioned impressions. I still have the two fairly meaty expansions left to do but I might do them later on as I take a break from the game for now.

I just finished up AI Somnium and man that was a fun game. Fantastic story and could never go be wrong with crude humor here n there. Never played a game like it but I've heard that Danganronpa is supposedly similar so I'll give that a go at some point. I played 95% of this on xcloud as well and it works great with the touch controls as well if you don't have a controller. Highly recommended it.