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[XsjadoBlayde]

The only advice I would ever give anybody regarding The Stanley Parable is that on your first playthrough, follow the narrator's instructions to the letter. It's better to start exploring and experimenting once you know what the 'baseline' is meant to be.

Your first time through, you should just do what the narrator tells you to. But the real fun of Stanley Parable is replays, and instead of obeying, go against the grain in a many ways as you can think of. There are tons of routes and endings you can reach. Then sit back as things get meta. So very, yet deliciously meta.

Ooh thanks! Yeah I may have been slightly distracted by an "Escape" sign near the beginning, but got trapped in a museum place so decided to restart after seeing a note on the wall saying how little players bothered using the in-menu restart option. I will be a good human from now on, I swear!

 

[Drathnoxis]

Stanley Parable: The Shiny One.
Currently too early in time to make judgement. Feels a bit Portal-y with narrative humour. This is the first time for me, so not sure what to expect. Think I may have gotten lost on first go and ended up in some potentially spoilery type museum room with director comments though. Not sure about anything so far. Seems cute.

I loved the original, I'm definitely going to have to play Ultra Deluxe. Apparently there's more new content than there was original game.

 

[BrawlMan]

Finished Razor's Edge. Final boss sucks. I stepped down to Hero mode, so I could just finish and be done. Kasumi is now unlocked and I can use any character in Chapter Challenge Mode. It's the only way to do a NG+. To unlock the harder modes for chapter challenge, I have to do a completely new game on the harder modes.

Yeah....

Not worth the effort.

 

[Ezekiel]

Exploring Frozen Wilds for the first time. Strange thing to continue a save file 3 1/2 years later. It was the one big thing I didn't do after finishing my complete edition of the game. Don't remember her arms being so fucking skinny.

 

[Ezekiel]

Can barely hear what Alloy is saying in the wild. Don't know why this is so difficult for so many developers.

 

[Kyrian007]

Did finish Weird West after returning from a week's vacation away from anything online. Wow. The end was awful. Not the story's end, that was fairly satisfying (if entirely predictable.) It was the WAY it ended. The closest thing to a "Final Boss" I had apparently already defeated 2 chapters ago. I was seriously gearing up and preparing for a big wild blowout... and the game finishes with your character in a chair answering personality test questions. Weak. Still the journey was worth it, even though I correctly guessed the big surprise "twist" reveal at the end. The final 2 chapters still couldn't match that sublime 3rd chapter, but they weren't as bad as the weakest, which was chapter 2.

There are significant problems with this game. I lost a much beloved character to perma-death... off-screen. With no indication there was any chance of that happening, no warning, no chance to stop it from happening unless I had stumbled upon it randomly. Yet the ending flat out told me I let him die. I didn't even know he was in any peril... how is it my fault for letting it happen, when it happens off-screen without any foreshadowing? It turns out I didn't go back, to a place I was never given any reason to go back to. That's why he died, I didn't randomly and without any reason to do so visit the map area I needed to go to trigger saving him. Weak.

And the patches are still significantly "tweaking" the game. With a promised overhaul of the entire game's economy... why. I'm not sure I once needed money for anything other than buying a horse. Just give us the horse to begin with and they could remove instead of overhaul the "economy" and use the extra space to... whatever. Add a couple new random encounter types, put in a big boss fight for the end, just do something more interesting than a useless economy.

Still, I enjoyed the game overall. Not sure I'd recommend it to anyone until they are done "tweaking" it. And if that happens to be after a price drop or a big sale drops the price. Well darn. What this game really needs is a sequel. Like an assassin's creed style "so much better than the first one it makes the first one basically unreplayable by comparison" sequel.

 

[gorfias]

Played some Luna. If you are already an Amazon Prime customer, they have a monthly rotating couple of games you play streaming at no extra charge. The catch? They're gone after about a month. I am a WICKED slow gamer. I'm almost done with the Force Unleashed 2 after a dozen years (last part is a slog). So, telling me I have a month to play a game? To me, that is called a "demo". If I was playing a game last month? It asks me if I'd like to continue playing. When I click yes, it says, "then pay us." No extra charge is almost my favorite price after free. But it is a warning that your wallet can be drained if you like a "demo" enough.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Finished Infamous: Second Son. Hm... Good. One of the better PS4 games I've played. Plays better than Horizon, not as pretentious as what Naughty Dog and Santa Monica did that generation (minus Lost Legacy), doesn't waste as much of your time as Spider-Man with its open world. Feels a little less made by committee. Story and characters are weak, but most of these kinds of games have that in common.

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Had all those upgrades left after I finished. That's how sick I am of all the upgrade trees in games, of going through those menus, reading those descriptions and trying to decide. Boring.

Now the only system I owned that I've finished all my games on. Well, except Red Dead 2, but that game was irritating. I sold it after a couple of hours.

I have a bit over half of SS done, and plan on finishing it but it’s so repetitive with the tasks and the combat isn’t all that engaging. I think my favorite thing to do in the game is taking out D.U.P. stations but the appeal has its limits. Oh, and photo mode. Probably the first PS4 game that makes good use of it.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Finished Guacamelee! 2 (replay). Platinum N° 73.

It's kind of a drag that there's not a whole lot new to the game since the first one. You get the same powers in the same order, for the most part. The Pollo Power has been retooled to be more useful in combat as in platforming, which is nice, so it no longer feels like a mere key to bypass a (unusually small) door. The Eagle Boost thing that acts as a slingshot adds to the platforming gauntlets. That's about it.

The meme humor sucks. More than that, the story isn't as engaging. Not that the first one was all that heavy on narrative but it managed to engage you in a simple, efficient way. The villain kidnaps the romantic interest and kills Juan, who then comes back to life to both avenge his death and rescue his girl. Saving the world is tangential to a personal motivation. In the sequel there's no real connection between Juan and the villain, and no personal element to the mission - Juan is plucked from his timeline to save the world because he's the designated hero and that's it. I don't have a problem with a hero "just doing his job" but when the job is "be the hero" it feels lazy and reductive. What's the motivation for the character in between the world being in peril, and why can't you weave it into the story?

Hard Mode didn't feel any more challenging than normal difficulty. I did skip on the special key hunting this time around, though I don't feel like revisiting any of those challenge rooms on any difficulty. This way I found out that the "bad" ending isn't particularly tragic, thankfully. Juan returns to his family all the same, it just takes him a couple of extra years to make it. Compared to the romantic interest living or dying at the end of the first game that's pretty mild.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

I loved the original, I'm definitely going to have to play Ultra Deluxe. Apparently there's more new content than there was original game.

Yeah, from what I've heard off podcasts, there's a sizeable chunk added including an extended riff on an old sterling review of the game too. No idea where yet, but it should only be a matter of poking the edges and seams till the glistening candy treats tumbles out.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Finished Guacamelee! 2 (replay). Platinum N° 73.

It's kind of a drag that there's not a whole lot new to the game since the first one. You get the same powers in the same order, for the most part. The Pollo Power has been retooled to be more useful in combat as in platforming, which is nice, so it no longer feels like a mere key to bypass a (unusually small) door. The Eagle Boost thing that acts as a slingshot adds to the platforming gauntlets. That's about it.

The meme humor sucks. More than that, the story isn't as engaging. Not that the first one was all that heavy on narrative but it managed to engage you in a simple, efficient way. The villain kidnaps the romantic interest and kills Juan, who then comes back to life to both avenge his death and rescue his girl. Saving the world is tangential to a personal motivation. In the sequel there's no real connection between Juan and the villain, and no personal element to the mission - Juan is plucked from his timeline to save the world because he's the designated hero and that's it. I don't have a problem with a hero "just doing his job" but when the job is "be the hero" it feels lazy and reductive. What's the motivation for the character in between the world being in peril, and why can't you weave it into the story?

You get it.

People don't need a complicated story or one with heavy stakes to get invested in something. Often, the most engaging element is to have a small personal reason for why you're doing things.

Like, I remember Spoony, in one of his Counter Monkey videos, talking about how players would go through heaven and hell if something of theirs was stolen. Not even necessarily something big like a beloved keepsake or all their money, but just the fact that something of theirs was taken would motivate them to run all over the place to get it back or at least find out why. The personal is often a more compelling reason than the grand.

 

[Ezekiel]

Finished the main story in Frozen Wilds. The land looked nice. Combat and story are still pretty middling 3 1/2 years after last playing this save file.

The more I play games, the more I think most puzzles are just a nuisance.

 

[meiam]

Finished the main story in Frozen Wilds. The land looked nice. Combat and story are still pretty middling 3 1/2 years after last playing this save file.

The more I play games, the more I think most puzzles are just a nuisance.

Most puzzles are just nuisance, they want to make sure everyone can clear the game so the puzzle have to be doable by the lowest denominator (little kid, etc.).

 

[Dalisclock]

Most puzzles are just nuisance, they want to make sure everyone can clear the game so the puzzle have to be doable by the lowest denominator (little kid, etc.).

Wasn't this a complaint about HFW as well? That they'd throw a puzzle at you and then have Aloy just tell you the solution or at very heavily hint at it?

I feel like they need a button or slider for puzzles like this where you can tell the game either "Yes, I want the game to give puzzle hints", "No, I don't want the game to give me puzzle hints. Shut your month please" or maybe an inbetween "Give me puzzle hints if I haven't made any progress in like 10 minutes or something".

 

[BrawlMan]

Wasn't this a complaint about HFW as well? That they'd throw a puzzle at you and then have Aloy just tell you the solution or at very heavily hint at it?

You know something is wrong, when a 2.5D, cel-shaded brawler from 2003 has better and more intuitive puzzles than nearly all 8th and 9th gen games. Most of the puzzles weren't complicated either; just needed to look at your surroundings, or use and combine certain powers at your disposal. It seems like most modern AAA games have "puzzles" to fill out a quota. Sometimes it is best not to put something no one wants, or is only put in the game to waste the player's time. Devil May Cry 5 got rid of puzzles entirely with little complaints from the fans. With good reason. DmC (2013) only had puzzle in the entire game. Put in the end of the mission before reaching the final two missions. People are playing these games for the combat!

 

[Drathnoxis]

Wasn't this a complaint about HFW as well? That they'd throw a puzzle at you and then have Aloy just tell you the solution or at very heavily hint at it?

I feel like they need a button or slider for puzzles like this where you can tell the game either "Yes, I want the game to give puzzle hints", "No, I don't want the game to give me puzzle hints. Shut your month please" or maybe an inbetween "Give me puzzle hints if I haven't made any progress in like 10 minutes or something".

Also to do like Silent Hill and give a puzzle difficulty option.

 

[BrawlMan]

I got all the weapons in Razor's Edge now. The last one I had to get was Kusari-Gama. AKA, the Kunai Whip-Chain for Yu-gi-oh! fans. Some of the weapons are locked behind collecting a required amount of Golden Scarab Beetles. That is dumb. The same applies for health upgrades too. I know they're not that hard to find, but there were some I straight up missed because, I did not bother to turn the camera to another corner or behind me. The saving grace is that whatever collectibles you get are saved permanently. Be they crystal skulls or the beetles. This includes chapter challenge, since it doubles as a sorta New Game+. Team Ninja did at least thought ahead. I've been playing some the of the other characters and leveling them up. Kasumi is my favorite of the gals. She is fast and has some the best feeling combos in the game.

EDIT: The Scarab collectibles are tied to your overall rank. Why did some action games from 2012-2013 do this? Technically, DMC4 did it first with its orb count, and is the most obnoxious about this. DmC had the Lost Souls, Keys (two types of keys in the vanilla release), or both collectibles in a mission. If a mission had no collectibles at all, then you would automatically get the SSS for that category. There is nut much skill involved, and rewards the player for something not needed in the first place.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Also to do like Silent Hill and give a puzzle difficulty option.

Just maybe don't make the hard difficulty so much of a huge leap from the normal level as Silent Hill 3 did. No real face looks anything like a keypad.

 

[sXeth]

Finished out the story-side of the Angels of Zariman Warframe expansion/update thing. Mostly one of their smaller preludes, the update was much more mechanically driven. The story side seeming more to be a prelude point what I assume will be the announcement proper of Duviri Paradox as an expansion at Tennocon in July.

 

[Dalisclock]

Also to do like Silent Hill and give a puzzle difficulty option.

I know it's not the same thing, but there have been numerous games that have difficulty options for puzzles, combat, etc, so you could tailor what you were playing the game for.

Monkey Island 2 famously had a "Easy" difficulty level "For game reviewers", along side the normal difficulty. Notably, the "Easy" difficulty had entire puzzles either removed or heavily simplified. On one hand, there pretty much trucates half the reason you would have been paying $60 for the game upon release. On the other, some of those puzzles were incredibly tricky without access to a hint guide or the internet. Remember, LA used to have a 1-900 number(as in you paid by the minute to call it) to get hints if you were stumped.