Topic: Pure Xbox Game Club - On Indefinite Hiatus

@ralphdibny I've also completed Avengers quite recently so won't play it again... but will listen in on the discussion once others have played a bit... with popcorn out, i'm imagining quite a range of views. Personally it was one of the most disappointing games i've ever played.

I'm a little bummed that Yoku's Island Express lost to it, which is a genuinely brilliant, unique and award winning game... but that's democracy

for me personally avengers was ok but then im not into marvel anymore too much of it has ruined the whole thing for me too many movies too many tv shows and soon too many games

@ralphdibny I get what you say about the camera angle, it put me off initially but I think being so close to the character increases the tension and it's harder to see what's behind you when there's a swarm attacking.
I don't think I'll finish it by the end of the month as I've got a few very busy days but hopefully I'll finish it next week.

@themightyant fair enough! I think it's just Gona be a standard game really. I won't touch the GaaS service stuff unless it comes naturally as part of gameplay. But I do love the avengers and I'd play most Marvel games whether they are really good or not if I have access to them.

It's a close vote! At least what we play in August isn't as big of a deal as Br**** so we can make a decision on a 51/49 split 😅

@lookupmore yeah that's true, I think it's mainly just the unnecessary strain it puts on my left eye. It's like having the curtains open a crack and having the sun shine right through into my periphery. Well it's probably not that bad! But at least I can get up and close the curtain more 😅

You reminded me actually, how much I long for a quick 180 turn button combo like the Down+B (GameCube controls) in Resident Evil 4. I was thinking all throughout my playthrough how useful that would be in Dead Space!

Avengers eh….yikes. This is gonna be one I play while listening to podcasts I think

I think I will also give a miss on this one. On top of not much time to play on Xbox the whole game smells of bland to me. I heard the gameplay in itself is fine but the story is not great and the level design very poor and repetitive. But I will be here to hear your thoughts!!

@Balta666 I played a bit of Avengers earlier this year and it's exactly as you described it. It's one of those games where it sounds cool on paper but it's actually pretty bad, kinda like that one time when we played ReCore.

Would definitely go with Yoku instead (don't count it as a vote from me though).

the story of avengers was fine typical marvel affair i didnt think it was a bad story. for me it was the level design and the gameplay that was just meh functional but unremarkable

@trev666 Same. The story was fine - I liked Kamala - but the level design, gameplay and progression was not. My biggest criticism is that other than very few epic hero moments I never felt like a superhero, just a bad cosplaying facsimile.

It's times like these that make me wish for a second game club thread or to do a "double bill" month but I have to remind myself of the chaos that the old game club thread became when we had tight turnarounds or were playing two games at once.

It's always tough when the vote tally is so close!

Not everyone going to like every month simple as that. I myself didn't like dead space at all. For me it felt like a 13 in a dozen horror game and nothing I haven't seen before, but I knew before hand I'm not the biggest horror fan but at least I tried it. Oh well. Glad to see others enjoyed it.

Avengers I already played through the campaign and that was actually the best part of the game and pretty enjoyable imo. The biggest problem is the live service party where everything is repetitive and boring.

@ralphdibny democracy is great, no problems on my behalf. And if I have the time I will at least try it for a bit!

And now that I finally went to pick up my copy of XC3 I will go and hibernate in my cave

Glad to hear it peeps! Gives me faith in true democracy!

@Clankylad what level did you get to in the end? The strobing was doing me in a bit too!

My vote for August game goes to What Remains of Edith Finch that just got a current-gen upgrade.

@Clankylad fair play to ya. It's good to have the will to just stop if you want too. I'm too obsessive to leave most games unfinished 😅

I'm on level 12 now, about the face off the final boss!

I'm rolling credits on Dead Space now. I think overall I enjoyed it but it took a few levels to move beyond finding it scary.

The maps might be confusing to look at but the game is fairly linear and easier to explore than BioShock.

I think my final run time was about 12½-13 hours. I had about 270K in the bank at the end and also like 13 power nodes left over.

I did the plasma cutter only run on Medium difficulty. The only things I bought in the store were before level 11 were the suit upgrades. I didn't want to buy anything else in case I needed the money for something else. This meant ammo got a little bit tight for me in the last few levels.

I bought and filled up my inventory with ammo and health in the last couple levels because I wasn't sure when I'd hit the final boss. But the boss wasn't that hard on medium difficulty anyway.

I think the tips I picked up here and from my colleague at work really helped me whisk through this game without too much trouble (plus medium difficulty). I stopped bothering with tactical and accurate shooting in the last couple of levels too. Everything dies if you put enough plasma rounds in it, no need to dismember everything.

The only thing I did dismember by stamping on them were the random corpses littered about the place... _{gosh this game makes me sound like a psychopath if you take certain lines out of context 😅} I didn't want one of those flying flat things to turn them into those monsters lol

I know this game has a bit of a futurepunk S&M aesthetic to it with the design of the armour n all but is there any reason why Isaac walks around hunched over like a gimp? Is it purely aesthetic or is there a canonical in-universe explanation? Is it just because his armour/engineering suit and mask/helmet are quite heavy?

I've aired my grievances with certain aspects of the game in previous posts so I won't revisit them here. I will revisit and reiterate the positive comparison that I made to Doom 3 though. I think that helped me come to terms with and like this game. The monsters, the weird sounds and whispering, the demonic graffiti etc.

I've got a few tactical saves that will allow me to pick up remaining achievements but I don't think I'll bother as I'll likely never play the game on hard mode anyway. I think I will play the sequels at some point though.

I think that's it. I took a few screenshots in the final level which I might post at some point.

Just wanted to post my two screenshots from Dead Space before I change the thread to Avengers....

They are from the last level so I've stuck them under spoiler tags!

I actually started Marvel's Avengers today and it's freakin wicked so far. I'm not sure if it's just because I love Marvel or whatever but the first level was genuinely awesome where it starts out at the Avenger convention and seeing Ms. Marvel experience it through the player's eyes. I think I loved it as much as she did! I've finished the second sneaking level too and have taken a bus somewhere.

Highlights for me so far:

• Ms. Marvel, just awesome to see her playable in a game so soon after she was created in the comics. She's a great character and I loved her TV show too but I am glad she is back to being (spoiler for both the TV Show and this game) an Inhuman again!! 😀
• Captain America, emulating his fighting style from the films is awesome. I immediately tried mixing brawling with the ranged shield attacks (but on up close enemies after I punched them a few times and then going back to punching them) and it was so cool! Punch, shield bounce, punch!!!

I think I understand the criticisms of this game but I still think it is so cool. It's a bit like if they took one of those old Avengers "belt scrolling" beat 'em ups and made it 3D, diversified the gameplay of each character (albeit still limited to melee, range and special attacks) and added a proper story with cut scenes instead of lines/screens of text. _{Though I won't poopoo those lines/screens of text in old games, they were my lore when I was a kid and I couldn't get enough of them! Hell, Mortal Kombat managed to make a whole movie out of those text screens back in the 90s!}

Other things to note. When I booted up the game, I was so confused. I clicked on "Play game" and it showed me a sizzle reel of what I can only assume are spoilers from the actual game. The Campaign can be accessed from this mode after the sizzle reel runs it course but I went back into the main menu and clicked on "Operations" instead. This where all the campaign's can be accessed from and I would assume, hopefully without that spoilerific video being played. The main and original campaign for this game is called "Reassembled" so start with that one!

@ralphdibny the campaign is usually viewed as the good part of Avengers. The biggest problem people have with it is the multiplayer part, which is pretty boring and repetitive. I also enjoyed the campaign part very much but didn't really touch it afterwards. Maybe I'll try the black panther and Spiderman bits on my ps5

Also my vote for next month will be Brutal legend