Time for another go. I had a long gaming break last year, but finished off strong. Let's see how 2019 goes!
Finished (PC unless specified):
- Far Cry 5
- Prey
- The Division (all non-DZ content at 100%, coop with friends)
- Total War: Warhammer (Wood Elf campaign)
- Total War: Warhammer 2 (Lizardmen campaign)
- Submerged
- Strange Brigade
- Shadow Warrior 2
- Borderlands
- Borderlands 2
- Firewatch
- Slime Rancher
- Metro 2033 Redux
- Far Cry: New Dawn
- Jurassic World: Evolution
- World of Warcraft (I put in enough time to see most of the current content, and even though it isn't 'finished', I'm at the point of burnout.)
- Call of Duty: WW2 (single player campaign only)
- Borderlands 3 (twice through so far, once as Moze in 4-player coop, once as Fl4k solo)
- Halo: Reach (the new release)
Playing:
Side Games (multiplayer, coop only etc):
- Overwatch
- GTA Online
- Rainbow Six: Siege
- Borderlands 3
1/29 - Far Cry 5. I had fun with this. It was Far Cry, for all that means. There were things I loved, there were things I didn't. Yeah, the story had issues, but it's Far Cry. The story is just an excuse. The gameplay was a blast, save for certain forced events. The ending was... well, it has some possibilities. You're left wondering what happened, and what happens next. We know now that they set up a sequel. As with most Far Cry games, I got tired of its formula just as I was approaching the end, which is a good thing. Criticisms of the story aside, I really did have a blast. Montana was a great setting, familiar enough to feel fresh, as 'our everyday world' is a setting we don't often see in games. Worth the price of admission.
3/17 - Just finished Prey. I really liked this one. If you haven't played it, it's essentially System Shock 3, and is a better 'spiritual sequel' to it than Bioshock. It isn't subtle, either, going so far as to name their holo-panel technology 'Looking Glass.' It really wasn't what I expected. I thought it would be an action shooter. I was very pleasantly surprised. It has multiple endings, moral ambiguity, and choices that significantly affect the outcome.
5/3 - Finished Submerged. It's an exploration game. No combat, no death, and only a couple of dozen spoken words in the entire thing, those being in a fictional language. It was a lot of fun. The best way to describe it would be as a third person walking simulator (if you know the term - Dear Esther and Gone Home are in the genre) set in a future after society has fallen and the world has been covered in water. All that's left of the previous society are the tops of the skyscrapers in a large city sticking out of the ocean. The gameplay is part pure exploration - going from place to place, looking around, discovering what's there, and part climbing puzzle - think Assassin's Creed climbing. As you explore you discover bits and pieces of the story of the world and what's happened to bring it to this state, while simultaneously living out the protagonist's story. I found it peaceful, relaxing, and thoughtful, which is something I like every now and then. It's not for everyone, but I liked it.
2/X - Strange Brigade. Played this one in co-op. It's a sort of third person Left 4 Dead game set in a cheesy pulp serial world full of two-fisted heroes and mummies, and it was a lot of fun, especially with other players. The only negative is that the everything is easily achieved after a single playthrough, limiting replayability. I'm really glad I went through it, though.
4/14 - Borderlands GOTY Enhanced. What's there to say - I had hundreds of hours in BL1 before we started. Multiple solo runs, a set of runs with a friend, a set of runs with my kids, and now a run with fellow OOers. Such a great game, but I don't know if I'll be back. The thing is, we all knew it by heart, and that worked against it. Half the time we'd finish a quest in a wink and a blink because we'd be at objectives before they even appeared, and half the time we had players finishing multiple quests simultaneously because we knew where everything was.
7/3 - Firewatch. I really do enjoy peaceful exploration games, and this was that. I shied away from this one for quite a while, as the art style made me hesitate. Exploration games, for me, are about immersion. Stylistic graphics tend to work against that, as they always look like graphics, not a place (not that they weren't beautifully done.) But while the game may have been a little less immersive, it more than made up for it with remarkably well done characters that felt particularly human. I really enjoyed this.
8/12 - Slime Rancher. The first free game from Epic. I really had a lot of fun with this light... sim? It's a little bit ranching simulator, where you collect, feed, breed, and manage slimes, while researching better technologies. It is also a little bit exploration game, as you travel the world looking for resources, new types of slimes, new vistas, and so on. I didn't '100%' this game, but I probably got to the 90% range before I got burned out, and that's a compliment. I had a lot of fun with this. Great atmosphere, light hearted, the right amount of challenge. Great game if you like this sort of thing.
8/24 - Metro 2033 Redux. I'm not sure why I gave this one a miss for so long. It's a story-driven, linear post-apocalyptic shooter. It's Fallout 3+ without the open world or 'silly' elements. It's dark, challenging at times, and gritty, but a lot of fun. What really makes it stand out, though, is that it is a post-apocalyptic story told from a Russian perspective, taking place in and around the metro tunnels under Moscow a couple of decades after a nuclear war. The pacing was great, alternating stealth segments that were fairly well done with firefights or with 'set piece' encounters, and alternating close, cramped tunnels with fights in the city streets. Really good game.
9/6 - Far Cry: New Dawn
[WARNING - you can't discuss this game without some hint as to what happens at the end of 5.] The sequel to Far Cry 5. Sort of. I finished FC5 in January, and said:
"The ending was... well, it has some possibilities. You're left wondering what happened, and what happens next. We know now that they set up a sequel. " Having now played it, I'll say that I was wrong. It's best not to think of New Dawn as a sequel to Far Cry 5, but as a conclusion. It's part 2 to 5's part 1. And it works beautifully that way.
It takes place a couple of decades later in the same location as 5 and shows the aftermath of the events in the first game. Many characters make a return, which is cool, and some that I encountered as children in the first show up as significant characters in this one. Yes, it uses the same map, but in a good way. Revisiting the locations and seeing what's become of them was one of the highlights of the game. Liberating a base, then suddenly realizing that, holy crap, this was the lumber mill from the first game is surprisingly satisfying. Gameplay wise, this is Far Cry. More polished, but still Far Cry. If you've played FC 3 or later, you know basically what to expect. It's shorter than 5 (which is good), but longer than blood dragon, and probably a little longer than Primal.
It continues what has been a good trend. Ubi innovates with a number, then has fun with a variant, trying out less 'real' settings and situations . In my opinion, the variants are usually the best games in the series. FC3 had Blood Dragon (80s neon-and-chrome action), 4 had Primal (prehistoric), and 5 has New Dawn (post apocalyptic.)
I'm really curious about Far Cry 6.
10/12 - Jurassic World: Evolution. From the makers of Planet Coaster, this is essentially a theme park sim with dinosaurs. I five-starred every island and finished all the missions.
It was a good game. You start off on an island and are hand-held through the basics, then unlock another island, then a third, fourth, and fifth. Each is a 'mission', the way the Rollercoaster Tycoon career mode gave you different parks with different challenges. This one starts with lots of stuff, but was badly managed. This one has very little space and extreme storms. There are three 'divisions' (entertainment, science, and security) that vie for your time. Each one has a reputation bar on each island, and you can request contracts from each to increase your standing with them. If you don't pay enough attention to one, though, they will start sabotaging your park (breaking the power to enclosures, giving your dinosaurs disease, etc.) Why you wouldn't fire these assholes the first time they let a T-rex out and got a few guests swallowed is beyond me. Each also had one mission per island that usually had you doing something ethically questionable or something that wasn't in the park's best interest. I learned to set aside a section of land on each island just for their missions. I didn't experience any real bugs.
It looked great, and the sound was great. I had a lot of fun with it, and I'm glad I played, but it really lacked depth, especially in the park management aspects. Resource management was only relevant for the first 20% of any particular mission. Once you passed that point (usually when you got your first 'big draw' dinosaur), money was everywhere. The interface could use some work, especially with access to information (I never did find park value, and you had to go into multiple interfaces to see visitor numbers) and consistency. Also, whoever wrote the dialog need to be tossed to the T-Rex. It was awful, especially the butchered lines they gave to Ian Malcolm (he was, at best, a caricature of himself, despite Jeff Goldblum) and the head guy - Cabot, I think. Ugh.
Anyway, a good game, worth the time. It isn't a super deep or challenging game, but it is fun, and it lets you breed dinosaurs.
10/16 - Thanks to Mr. coopasonic, I was able to play through the campaign for Call of Duty: WW2. I was in my 'golden age' of gaming during the WWII game craze of the early 2000s, and I've missed it. I also used to really enjoy the linear, scripted single player campaigns that came along with games like Medal of Honor and Call of Duty (and later, Battlefield.) So I played it, despite some strong words against it in the PIFF thread. And I really, really enjoyed it. It was a nice change to go along on the Disney theme ride after the glut of loot based games and open world tchotchke hunts. There were a few things that I hated. There were some stupid technical choices, such as music you couldn't turn down or off. It really affected the immersion and even interfered with dialogue when the swelling orchestra was locked on blaring. There was a tank mission where the PC controls were purely awful, completely ignoring 20 years of tank conventions in shooters. I actually ended up doing half of that mission driving the tank backwards because there was no real way to turn it around. But the story was fine, the characters actually had some personality (even if they were a bit cliche), and I just had a good time for the ~9 hours Steam says I have invested.
11/something - Borderland 3. It is Borderlands, and I really love Borderlands. It has issues that need to be addressed (and Gearbox is usually pretty good about that), and has more depth than it's predecessors thanks to revised loot and the Guardian Ranks system.
12/6 - Halo: Reach. The new PC port. It's still a fun game (although it's a product of its era.) I have a lot of memories associated with this, as my kids were really, really into Halo back when this was released. We played it through side by side several times, and they spent every penny of their allowance (and much of their birthday and Christmas tree space) on Halo toys. They're mostly grown now, so this really was a trip down memory lane. For those considering it, wait for a patch. It has a few issues, particularly audio. The ambient sound is really loud, and drowns out everything else, and the rest is muddy and either too loud or too quiet. This isn't just my impression, it's a technical issue they've admitted to, said the fix would be difficult, and that it would take a while. Still, ten bucks...